A  MODERN 

Symposium 

G.  LOWES  DICKINSON 


A  MODERN  SYMPOSIUM 


Li 


A  Modern  Symposium 


G.  LOWES  DICKINSON 


AUTHOR  OF  LETTERS  FROM  JOHN  CHINAMAN 


"LIFE  LIKE  A  DOME  OF  MANY-COLOURED  GLASS 
STAINS  THE  WHITE  RADIANCE  OF  ETERNITY." 


GARDEN  CITY       NEW  YORK 

DOUBLEDAY.  PAGE  &  COMPANY 

1913 

a  -  U 


Copyright,  1905,  by 

DOUBLEDAY,     PAGE    &     COMPANY 


FRATRUM  SOCIETATI 
FRATRUM  MINIMUS 


THE  SPEAKERS 


LORD  CANTILUPE 

A  TORY 

ALFRED  REMENHAM 

A  LIBERAL 

REUBEN  MENDOZA 

A   CONSERVATIVE 

GEORGE  ALLISON 

A  SOCIALIST 

ANGUS  MAcCARTHY 

AN  ANARCHIST 

HENRY  MARTIN 

A  PROFESSOR 

CHARLES  WILSON 

A  MAN  OF  SCIENCE 

ARTHUR  ELLIS 

A  JOURNALIST 

PHILIP  AUDUBON 

A  MAN  OF  BUSINESS 

AUBREY  CORYAT 

A  POET 

SIR  JOHN  HARINGTON 

A  GENTLEMAN   OF  LEISURE 

WILLIAM  WOODMAN 

A  MEMBER  OF  THE  SOCIETY  OF  FRIENDS 

GEOFFRY  VIVIAN 

A  MAN  OF  LETTERS 


A  MODERN  SYMPOSIUM 


I 


A  MODERN  SYMPOSIUM 


SOME  of  my  readers  may  have  heard  of  a 
club  known  as  the  Seekers.  It  is  now  ex- 
tinct; but  in  its  day  it  was  famous,  and  in- 
cluded a  number  of  men  prominent  in  politics  or 
in  the  professions.  We  used  to  meet  once  a  fort- 
night on  the  Saturday  night,  in  London  during 
the  winter,  but  in  the  summer  usually  at  the  country 
house  of  one  or  other  of  the  members,  where  we 
would  spend  the  week  end  together.  The  member 
in  whose  house  the  meeting  was  held  was  chair* 
man  for  the  evening ;  and  after  the  paper  had  been 
read  it  was  his  duty  to  call  upon  the  members  to 
speak  in  what  order  he  thought  best.  On  the  oc- 
casion of  the  discussion  which  I  am  to  record,  the 
meeting  was  held  in  my  own  house,  where  I  now 
write,  on  the  North  Downs.  The  company  was  an 
interesting  one.  There  was  Remenham,  then  Prime 
F3] 


A  MODERN  SYMPOSIUM 

Minister,  and  his  great  antagonist  Mendoza,  both 
of  whom  were  members  of  our  society.  For  we 
aimed  at  combining  the  most  opposite  elements, 
and  were  usually  able,  by  a  happy  tradition  inher- 
ited from  our  founder,  to  hold  them  suspended  in  a 
temporary  harmony.  Then  there  was  Cantilupe, 
who  had  recently  retired  from  public  life,  and 
whose  name,  perhaps,  is  already  beginning  to  be 
forgotten.  Of  younger  men  we  had  Allison,  who, 
though  still  engaged  in  business,  was  already 
active  in  his  socialist  propaganda.  Angus  Mac- 
Carthy,  too,  was  there,  a  man  whose  tragic  end  at 
Saint  Petersburg  is  still  fresh  in  our  minds.  And 
there  were  others  of  less  note;  Wilson,  the  biolo- 
gist, Professor  Martin,  Coryat,  the  poet,  and  one 
or  two  more  who  will  be  mentioned  in  their  place. 
After  dinner,  the  time  of  year  being  June, 
and  the  weather  unusually  warm,  we  adjourned  to 
the  terrace  for  our  coffee  and  cigars.  The  air  was 
so  pleasant  and  the  prospect  so  beautiful,  the 
whole  weald  of  Sussex  lying  before  us  in  the  even- 
ing light,  that  it  was  suggested  we  should  hold  our 
meeting  there  rather  than  indoors.  This  was 
agreed.  But  it  then  transpired  that  Cantilupe,  who 
[4] 


A  MODERN  SYMPOSIUM 

was  to  have  read  the  paper,  had  brought  nothing 
to  read.  He  had  forgotten,  or  he  had  been  too 
busy.  At  this  discovery  there  was  a  general  cry  of 
protest.  Cantilupe's  proposition  that  we  should 
forego  our  discussion  was  indignantly  scouted; 
and  he  was  pressed  to  improvise  something  on  the 
lines  of  what  he  had  intended  to  write.  This,  how- 
ever, he  steadily  declined  to  attempt;  and  it 
seemed  as  though  the  debate  would  fall  through, 
until  it  occurred  to  me  to  intervene  in  my  capac- 
ity as  chairman. 

"Cantilupe, "  I  said,  "certainly  ought  to  be 
somehow  penalized.  And  since  he  declines  to  im- 
provise a  paper,  I  propose  that  he  improvise  a 
speech.  He  is  accustomed  to  doing  that;  and  since 
he  has  now  retired  from  public  life,  this  may  be  his 
Jast  opportunity.  Let  him  employ  it,  then,  in  doing 
penance.  And  the  penance  I  impose  is,  that  he 
should  make  a  personal  confession.  That  he  should 
tell  us  why  he  has  been  a  politician,  why  he  has 
been,  and  is,  a  Tory,  and  why  he  is  now  retiring  in 
the  prime  of  life.  I  propose,  in  a  word,  that  he 
should  give  us  his  point  of  view.  That  will  cer- 
tainly provoke  Remenham,  on  whom  I  shall  call 
[5] 


A  MODERN  SYMPOSIUM 

next.  He  will  provoke  some  one  else.  And  so  we 
shall  all  find  ourselves  giving  our  points  of  view, 
and  we  ought  to  have  a  very  interesting  evening.  " 
This  suggestion  was  greeted,  if  not  with  enthusi- 
asm, at  least  with  acquiescence.  Cantilupe  at  first 
objected  strongly,  but  yielded  to  pressure,  and  on 
my  calling  formally  upon  him  rose  reluctantly 
from  his  seat.  For  a  minute  or  two  he  stood  silent, 
humping  his  shoulders  and  smiling  through  his 
thick  beard.  Then,  in  his  slow,  deliberate  way,  he 
began  as  follows : 

"  Why  I  went  into  politics  ?  Why  did  I  ?  I  'm 
sure  I  don't  know.  Certainly  I  was  n't  intended  for 
it.  I  was  intended  for  a  country  gentleman,  and  I 
hope  for  the  rest  of  my  life  to  be  one;  which,  per- 
haps, it  I  were  candid,  is  the  real  reason  of  my  re- 
tirement. But  I  was  pushed  into  politics  when  I 
was  young,  as  a  kind  of  family  duty ;  and  once  in 
it 's  very  hard  to  get  out  again.  I  'm  coming  out  now 
because,  among  other  things,  there's  no  longer  any 
place  for  me.  Toryism  is  dead.  And  I,  as  you  justly 
describe  me,  am  a  Tory.  But  you  want  to  know 
why  ?  Well,  I  don't  know  that  I  can  tell  you.  Per- 
haps I  ought  to  be  able  to.  Remenham,  I  know, 

[6] 


A  MODERN  SYMPOSIUM 

can  and  will  give  you  the  clearest  possible  account 
of  why  he  is  a  Liberal.  But  then  Remenham  has 
principles;  and  I  have  only  prejudices.  I  am  a  Tory 
because  I  was  born  one,  just  as  another  man  is  a 
Radical  because  he  was  born  one.  But  Remenham, 
I  really  believe,  is  a  Liberal,  because  he  has  con- 
vinced himself  that  he  ought  to  be  one.  I  admire 
him  for  it,  but  I  am  quite  unable  to  understand 
him.  And,  for  my  own  part,  if  I  am  to  defend,  or 
rather  to  explain  myself,  I  can  only  do  so  by  ex- 
plaining my  prejudices.  And  really  I  am  glad  to 
have  the  opportunity  of  doing  so,  if  only  because 
it  is  a  satisfaction  occasionally  to  say  what  one 
thinks;  a  thing  which  has  become  impossible  in 
public  life. 

"  The  first  of  my  prejudices  is  that  I  believe  in  in- 
equality. I  'm  not  at  all  sure  that  that  is  a  preju- 
dice confined  to  myself  —  most  people  seem  to  act 
upon  it  in  practice,  even  in  America.  But  I  not 
only  recognize  the  fact,  I  approve  the  ideal  of  in- 
equality. I  don't  want,  myself,  to  be  the  equal  of 
Darwin  or  of  the  German  Emperor;  and  I  don't  see 
why  anybody  should  want  to  be  my  equal.  I  like  a 
society  properly  ordered  in  ranks  and  classes.  I 
[7] 


A  MODERN   SYMPOSIUM 

like  my  butcher  or  my  gardener  to  take  off  his 
hat  to  me,  and  I  like,  myself,  to  stand  bare- 
headed in  the  presence  of  the  Queen.  I  don't 
know  that  I  'm  better  or  worse  than  the  village 
carpenter;  but  I  'm  different;  and  I  like  him 
to  recognize  that  fact,  and  to  recognize  it  myself. 
In  America,  I  am  told,  every  one  is  always  inform- 
ing you,  in  everything  they  do  and  say,  directly  or 
indirectly,  that  they  are  as  good  as  you  are.  That 
is  n't  true,  and  if  it  were,  it  is  n't  good  manners  to 
keep  saying  it.  I  prefer  a  society  where  people  have 
places  and  know  them.  They  always  do  have 
places  in  any  possible  society;  only,  in  a  democratic 
society,  they  refuse  to  recognize  them;  and,  conse- 
quently, social  relations  are  much  ruder,  more  un- 
pleasant and  less  humane  than  they  are,  or  used  to 
be,  in  England.  That  is  my  first  prejudice;  and  it 
follows,  of  course,  that  I  hate  the  whole  democratic 
movement.  I  see  no  sense  in  pretending  to  make 
people  equal  politically  when  they  're  unequal  in 
every  other  respect.  Do  what  you  may,  it  will  al- 
ways be  a  few  people  that  will  govern.  And  the  only 
real  result  of  the  extension  of  the  franchise  has  been 
to  transfer  political  power  from  the  landlords  to 
[8] 


A  MODERN  SYMPOSIUM 

the  trading  classes  and  the  wire-pullers.  Well,  I 
don't  think  the  change  is  a  good  one.  And  that 
brings  me  to  my  second  prejudice,  a  prejudice 
against  trade.  I  don't  mean,  of  course,  that  we  can 
do  without  it.  A  country  must  have  wealth,  though 
I  think  we  were  a  much  better  country  when  we 
had  less  than  we  have  now.  Nor  do  I  dispute  that 
there  are  to  be  found  excellent,  honourable,  and 
capable  men  of  business.  But  I  believe  that  the 
pursuit  of  wealth  tends  to  unfit  men  for  the  service 
of  the  state.  And  I  sympathize  with  the  somewhat 
extreme  view  of  the  ancient  world  that  those  who 
are  engaged  in  trade  ought  to  be  excluded  from 
public  functions.  I  believe  in  government  by  gen- 
tlemen; and  the  word  gentleman  I  understand  in 
the  proper,  old-fashioned  English  sense,  as  a  man 
of  independent  means,  brought  up  from  his  boy- 
hood in  the  atmosphere  of  public  life,  and  destined 
either  for  the  army,  the  navy,  the  Church,  or  Parlia- 
ment. It  was  that  kind  of  man  that  made  Rome 
great,  and  that  made  England  great  in  the  past; 
and  I  don't  believe  that  a  country  will  ever  be  great 
which  is  governed  by  merchants  and  shopkeepers 
and  artisans.  Not  because  they  are  not,  or  may  not 
[9] 


A  MODERN  SYMPOSIUM 

be, estimable  people;  but  because  their  occupations 
and  manner  of  life  unfit  them  for  public  service. 

"  Well,  that  is  the  kind  of  feeling — I  won't  call  it 
a  principle  —  which  determined  my  conduct  in 
public  life.  And  you  will  remember  that  it  seemed 
to  be  far  more  possible  to  give  expression  to  it 
when  first  I  entered  politics  than  it  is  now.  Even 
after  the  first  Reform  Act  —  which,  in  my  opinion 
was  conceived  upon  the  wrong  lines  —  the  landed 
gentry  still  governed  England;  and  if  I  could  have 
had  my  way  they  would  have  continued  to  do  so. 
It  was  n't  really  parliamentary  reform  that  was 
wanted;  it  was  better  and  more  intelligent  gov- 
ernment. And  such  government  the  then  ruling 
class  was  capable  of  supplying,  as  is  shown  by  the 
series  of  measures  passed  in  the  thirties  and  for- 
ties, the  new  Poor  Law  and  the  Public  Health  Acts 
and  the  rest.  Even  the  repeal  of  the  Corn  Laws 
shows  at  least  how  capable  they  were  of  sacrificing 
their  own  interests  to  the  nation ;  though  otherwise 
I  consider  that  measure  the  greatest  of  their  blund- 
ers. I  don't  profess  to  be  a  political  economist,  and 
I  am  ready  to  take  it  from  those  whose  business  it 
is  to  know  that  our  wealth  has  been  increased  by 
[10] 


A  MODERN  SYMPOSIUM 

Free  Trade.  But  no  one  has  ever  convinced  me, 
though  many  people  have  tried,  that  the  increase 
of  wealth  ought  to  be  the  sole  object  of  a  nation's 
policy.  And  it  is  surely  as  clear  as  day  that  the 
policy  of  Free  Trade  has  dislocated  the  whole 
structure  of  our  society.  It  has  substituted  a  mis- 
erable city-proletariat  for  healthy  labourers  on  the 
soil;  it  has  transferred  the  great  bulk  of  wealth 
from  the  country-gentlemen  to  the  traders ;  and  in 
so  doing  it  has  more  and  more  transferred  power 
from  those  who  had  the  tradition  of  using  it  to 
those  who  have  no  tradition  at  all  except  that  of  ac- 
cumulation. The  very  thing  which  I  should  have 
thought  must  be  the  main  business  of  a  statesman 
• — the  determination  of  the  proper  relations  of 
classes  to  one  another — we  have  handed  over  to  the 
chances  of  competition.  We  have  abandoned  the 
problem  in  despair,  instead  of  attempting  to  solve 
it;  with  the  result,  that  our  population  —  so  it 
seems  to  me  —  is  daily  degenerating  before  our 
eyes,  in  physique,  in  morals,  in  taste,  in  everything 
that  matters;  while  we  console  ourselves  with  the 
increasing  aggregate  of  our  wealth.  Free  Trade,  in 
my  opinion,  was  the  first  great  betrayal  by  the 
[11] 


A  MODERN  SYMPOSIUM 

governing  class  of  the  country  and  themselves, 
and  the  second  was  the  extension  of  the  franchise. 
I  do  not  say  that  I  would  not  have  made  any 
change  at  all  in  the  parliamentary  system  that  had 
been  handed  down  to  us.  But  I  would  never  have 
admitted,  even  implicitly,  that  every  man  has  a 
right  to  vote,  still  less  that  all  have  an  equal  right. 
For  society,  say  what  we  may.  is  not  composed  of 
individuals  but  of  classes;  and  by  classes  it  ought 
to  be  represented.  I  would  have  enfranchised  peas- 
ants, artisans,  merchants,  manufacturers,  as  such, 
taking  as  my  unit  the  interest,  not  the  individual, 
and  assigning  to  each  so  much  weight  as  would 
enable  its  influence  to  be  felt,  while  preserving  to 
the  landed  gentry  their  preponderance.  That  would 
have  been  difficult,  no  doubt,  but  it  would  have 
been  worth  doing;  whereas  it  was,  to  my  mind,  as 
foolish  as  it  was  easy  simply  to  add  new  batches  of 
electors,  till  we  shall  arrive,  I  do  not  doubt,  at 
what,  in  effect,  is  universal  suffrage,  without  hav- 
ing ever  admitted  to  ourselves  that  we  wanted  to 
have  it. 

"  But  what  has  been  done  is  final  and  irremedi- 
able.   Henceforth,  numbers,  or  rather  those  who 
[12] 


A  MODERN  SYMPOSIUM 

control  numbers,  will  dominate  England;  and  they 
will  not  be  the  men  under  whom  hitherto  she  has 
grown  great.  For  people  like  myself  there  is  no 
longer  a  place  in  politics.  And  really,  so  far  as  I  am 
personally  concerned,  I  am  rather  glad  to  know  it. 
Those  who  have  got  us  into  the  mess  must  get  us 
out  of  it.  Probably  they  will  do  so,  in  their  own  way; 
but  they  will  make,  in  the  process,  a  very  differ- 
ent England  from  the  one  I  have  known  and  un- 
derstood and  loved.  We  shall  have  a  population  of 
city  people,  better  fed  and  housed,  I  hope,  than 
they  are  now,  clever  and  quick  and  smart,  living 
entirely  by  their  heads,  ready  to  turn  out  in  a  mo- 
ment for  use  everything  they  know,  but  knowing 
really  very  little,  and  not  knowing  it  very  well. 
There  will  be  fewer  of  the  kind  of  people  in  whom 
I  take  pleasure,  whom  I  like  to  regard  as  peculiarly 
English,  and  who  are  the  products  of  the  country- 
side; fellows  who  grow  like  vegetables,  and,  with- 
out knowing  how,  put  on  sense  as  they  put  on  flesh 
by  an  unconscious  process  of  assimilation;  who 
will  stand  for  an  hour  at  a  time  watching  a  horse 
or  a  pig,  with  stolid  moon-faces  as  motionless  as  a 
pond;  the  sort  of  men  that  visitors  from  town  im- 
[13] 


A  MODERN  SYMPOSIUM 

agine  to  be  stupid  because  they  take  five  minutes 
to  answer  a  question,  and  then  probably  answer  by 
asking  another;  but  who  have  stored  up  in  them  a 
wealth  of  experience  far  too  extensive  and  com- 
plicated for  them  ever  to  have  taken  account  of  it. 
They  live  by  their  instincts  not  their  brains;  but 
their  instincts  are  the  slow  deposit  of  long  years 
of  practical  dealings  with  nature.  That  is  the  kind 
of  man  I  like.  And  I  like  to  live  among  them  in 
the  way  I  do  —  in  a  traditional  relation  which  it 
never  occurs  to  them  to  resent,  any  more  than  it 
does  to  me  to  abuse  it.  That  sort  of  relation  you 
can't  create ;  it  has  to  grow,  and  to  be  handed  down 
from  father  to  son.  The  new  men  who  come  on  to 
the  land  never  manage  to  establish  it.  They  bring 
with  them  the  isolation  which  is  the  product  of 
cities.  They  have  no  idea  of  any  tie  except  that  of 
wages;  the  notion  of  neighbourliness  they  do  not 
understand.  And  that  reminds  me  of  a  curious 
thing.  People  go  to  town  for  society;  but  I  have  al- 
ways found  that  there  is  no  real  society  except  in 
the  country.  We  may  be  stupid  there,  but  we  be- 
long to  a  scheme  of  things  which  embodies  the 
wisdom  of  generations.  We  meet  not  in  drawing- 
[14] 


A  MODERN  SYMPOSIUM 

rooms,  but  in  the  hunting-field,  on  the  county- 
bench,  at  dinners  of  tenants  or  farmers'  associa- 
tions. Our  private  business  is  intermixed  with  our 
public.  Our  occupation  does  not  involve  competi- 
tion ;  and  the  daily  performance  of  its  duties  we  feel 
to  be  itself  a  kind  of  national  service.  That  is  an 
order  of  things  which  I  understand  and  admire,  as 
my  fathers  understood  and  admired  it  before  me. 
And  that  is  why  I  am  a  Tory;  not  because  of  any 
opinions  I  hold,  but  because  that  is  my  character. 
I  stood  for  Toryism  while  it  meant  something ;  and 
now  that  it  means  nothing,  though  I  stand  for  it  no 
longer,  still  I  can't  help  being  it.  The  England  that 
is  will  last  my  time ;  the  England  that  is  to  be  does 
not  interest  me;  and  it  is  as  well  that  I  should  have 
nothing  to  do  with  directing  it. 

"I  don't  know  whether  that  is  a  sufficient  ac- 
count of  the  question  I  was  told  to  answer;  but  it 's 
the  best  I  can  make,  and  I  think  it  ought  to  be  suf- 
ficient. I  always  imagine  myself  saying  to  God,  if 
He  asks  me  to  give  an  account  of  myself :  '  Here  I 
am,  as  you  made  me.  You  can  take  me  or  leave  me. 
If  I  had  to  live  again  I  would  live  just  so.  And  if 
you  want  me  to  live  differently,  you  must  make  me 
[15] 


A  MODERN  SYMPOSIUM 

different. '  I  have  championed  a  losing  cause,  and  1 
am  sorry  it  has  lost.  But  I  do  not  break  my  heart 
about  it.  I  can  still  live  for  the  rest  of  my  days  the 
life  I  respect  and  enjoy.  And  I  am  content  to  leave 
the  nation  in  the  hands  of  Remenham,  who,  as  I 
see,  is  all  impatience  to  reply  to  my  heresies.  " 

REMENHAM  in  fact  was  fidgetting  in  his 
chair  as  though  he  found  it  hard  to  keep 
his  seat;  and  I  should  have  felt  bound  in 
pity  to  call  upon  him  next,  even  if  I  had  not  al- 
ready determined  to  do  so.  He  rose  with  alacrity; 
and  it  was  impossible  not  to  be  struck  by  the  con- 
trast he  presented  to  Cantilupe.  His  elastic  up- 
right figure,  his  firm  chin,  the  exuberance  of  his 
gestures,  the  clear  ring  of  his  voice,  expressed  ad- 
mirably the  intellectual  and  nervous  force  which  he 
possessed  in  a  higher  degree  than  any  man  I  have 
ever  come  across.  He  began  without  hesitation,  and 
spoke  throughout  with  the  trained  and  facile  elo- 
quence of  which  he  was  master.  "I  shall,  I  am 
sure,  be  believed,"  he  said,  "when  I  emphatically 
assert  that  nothing  could  be  more  distressing  to  me 
than  the  notion  —  if  I  should  be  driven  to  accept  it 
—  that  the  liberal  measures  on  which,  in  my  opin- 
[16] 


A  MODERN  SYMPOSIUM 

ion,  the  prosperity  and  the  true  welfare  of  the 
country  depends  should  have,  as  one  of  their  inci- 
dental concomitants,  the  withdrawal  from  public 
life  of  such  men  as  our  friend  who  has  just  sat 
down.  We  need  all  the  intellectual  and  moral  re- 
sources of  the  country;  and  among  them  I  count  as 
not  the  least  valuable  and  fruitful  the  stock  of  our 
ancient  country  gentlemen.  I  regretted  the  retire- 
ment of  Lord  Cantilupe  on  public  as  well  as  on 
personal  grounds ;  and  my  regret  is  only  tempered, 
not  altogether  removed,  when  I  see  how  well,  how 
honourably  and  how  happily  he  is  employing  his 
well-deserved  leisure.  But  I  am  glad  to  know 
that  we  have  still,  and  to  believe  that  we  shall  con- 
tinue to  have,  in  the  great  Council  of  the  nation, 
men  of  his  distinguished  type  and  tradition  to  form 
one,  and  that  not  the  least  important,  of  the  bal- 
ances and  counter-checks  in  the  great  and  compli- 
cated engine  of  state. 

"  When,  however,  he  claims  —  or  perhaps  I 
should  rather  say  desires  —  for  the  distinguished 
order  of  which  he  is  a  member,  an  actual  and  per- 
manent preponderance  in  the  state,  there,  I  con- 
fess, I  must  part  company  with  him.  Nay,  I  cannot 
[17] 


A  MODERN  SYMPOSIUM 

even  accept  the  theory,  to  which  he  gave  expres- 
sion, of  a  fixed  and  stable  representation  of  inter- 
ests. It  is  indeed  true  that  society,  by  the  mysteri- 
ous dispensation  of  the  Divine  Being,  is  wonder- 
fully compounded  of  the  most  diverse  elements 
and  classes,  corresponding  to  the  various  needs 
and  requirements  of  human  life.  And  it  is  an  an- 
cient theory,  supported  by  the  authority  of  great 
names,  by  Plato,  my  revered  master,  the  poet- 
philosopher,  by  Aristotle,  the  founder  of  political 
science,  that  the  problem  of  a  statesman  is  so  to 
adjust  these  otherwise  discordant  elements  as  to 
form  once  for  all  in  the  body-politic  a  perfect,  a 
final  and  immutable  harmony.  There  is,  according 
to  this  view,  one  simple  chord  and  one  only,  which 
the  great  organ  of  society  is  adapted  to  play;  and 
the  business  of  the  legislator  is  merely  to  tune  the 
instrument  so  that  it  shall  play  it  correctly.  Thus,  if 
Plato  could  have  had  his  way,  his  great  common 
chord,  his  harmony  of  producers,  soldiers  and  phil- 
osophers, would  still  have  been  droning  monoto- 
nously down  the  ages,  wherever  men  were  assem- 
bled to  dwell  together.  Doubtless  the  concord  he 
conceived  was  beautiful.  But  the  dissonances  he 
[18] 


A  MODERN  SYMPOSIUM 

would  have  silenced,  but  which,  with  ever-aug- 
menting force,  peal  and  crash,  from  his  day  to 
ours,  through  the  echoing  vault  of  time,  embody, 
as  I  am  apt  to  think,  a  harmony  more  august  than 
any  which  even  he  was  able  to  imagine,  and  in 
their  intricate  succession  weave  the  plan  of  a 
world-symphony  too  high  to  be  apprehended  save 
in  part  by  our  grosser  sense,  but  perceived  with 
delight  by  the  pure  intelligence  of  immortal  spirits. 
It  is  indeed  the  fundamental  defect  of  all  imagin- 
ary polities  —  and  how  much  more  of  such  as  fos- 
silize, without  even  idealizing,  the  actual !  —  that 
even  though  they  be  perfect,  their  perfection  is  rel- 
ative only  to  a  single  set  of  conditions;  and  that 
could  they  perpetuate  themselves  they  would  also 
perpetuate  these,  which  should  have  been  but  brief 
and  transitory  phases  in  the  history  of  the  race. 
Had  it  been  possible  for  Plato  to  establish  over  the 
habitable  globe  his  golden  chain  of  philosophic 
cities,  he  would  have  rivetted  upon  the  world  for 
ever  the  institutions  of  slavery  and  caste,  would 
have  sealed  at  the  source  the  springs  of  science  and 
invention,  and  imprisoned  in  perennial  impotence 
that  mighty  genius  of  empire  which  alone  has  been 
[19] 


A  MODERN  SYMPOSIUM 

able  to  co-ordinate  to  a  common  and  beneficent 
end  the  stubborn  and  rebellious  members  of  this 
growing  creature  Man.  And  if  the  imagination  of 
a  Plato,  permitted  to  work  its  will,  would  thus 
have  sterilized  the  germs  of  progress,  what  shall  we 
say  of  such  men  as  ourselves  imposing  on  the  fe- 
cundity of  nature  the  limits  and  rules  of  our  imper- 
fect mensuration!  Rather  should  we,  in  humility, 
submit  ourselves  to  her  guidance,  and  so  adapt  our 
institutions  that  they  shall  hamper  as  little  as  may 
be  the  movements  and  forces  operating  within 
them.  For  it  is  by  conflict,  as  we  have  now  learnt, 
that  the  higher  emerges  from  the  lower,  and  nature 
herself,  it  would  almost  seem,  does  not  direct  but 
looks  on,  as  her  world  emerges  in  painful  toil  from 
chaos.  We  do  not  find  her  with  precipitate  zeal  in- 
tervening to  arrest  at  a  given  point  the  ferment  of 
creation;  stretching  her  hand  when  she  sees  the 
gleam  of  the  halcyon  or  the  rose  to  bid  the  process 
cease  that  would  destroy  them;  and  sacrificing  to 
the  completeness  of  those  lower  forms  the  nobler 
imperfection  of  man  and  of  what  may  lie  beyond 
him.  She  looks  always  to  the  end;  and  so  in  our 
statesmanship  should  we,  striving  to  express,  not 
[20] 


A  MODERN  SYMPOSIUM 

to  limit,  by  our  institutions  the  forces  with  which 
we  have  to  deal.  Our  polity  should  grow,  like  a 
skin,  upon  the  living  tissue  of  society.  For  who  are 
we  that  we  should  say  to  this  man  or  that,  go 
plough,  keep  shop,  or  govern  the  state  ?  That  we 
should  say  to  the  merchant,  'thus  much  power 
shall  be  yours,'  and  to  the  farmer  'thus  much 
yours  ? '  No !  rather  let  us  say  to  each  and  to  all, 
Take  the  place  you  can,  enjoy  the  authority  you 
can  win !  Let  our  constitution  express  the  balance 
of  forces  in  our  society,  and  as  they  change  let  the 
disposition  of  power  change  with  them !  That  is  the 
creed  of  liberalism,  supported  by  nature  herself, 
and  sanctioned,  I  would  add  with  reverence,  by 
the  Almighty  Power,  in  the  disposition  and  order 
of  his  stupendous  creation. 

"  But  it  is  not  a  creed  that  levels,  nor  one  that 
destroys.  None  can  have  more  regard  than  I  —  not 
Cantilupe  himself  —  for  our  ancient  crown,  our 
hereditary  aristocracy.  These,  while  they  deserve 
it  —  and  long  may  they  do  so !  —  will  retain  their 
honoured  place  in  the  hearts  and  affections  of  the 
people.  Only,  alongside  of  them,  I  would  make 
room  for  all  elements  and  interests  that  may  come 
[21] 


A  MODERN  SYMPOSIUM 

into  being  in  the  natural  course  of  the  play  of  social 
forces.  But  these  will  be  far  too  numerous,  far  too 
inextricably  interwoven,  too  rapidly  changing  in 
relative  weight  and  importance,  for  the  intelligence 
of  man  to  attempt,  by  any  artificial  scheme,  to  bal- 
ance and  adjust  their  conflicting  claims.  Open  to 
all  men  equally,  within  the  limits  of  prudence,  the 
avenue  to  political  influence,  and  let  them  use,  as 
they  can  and  will,  in  combined  or  isolated  action, 
the  opportunities  thus  liberally  bestowed.  That  is 
the  key-note  of  the  policy  which  I  have  consistently 
adopted  from  my  entrance  into  public  life,  and 
which  I  am  prepared  to  prosecute  to  the  end, 
though  that  end  should  be  the  universal  suffrage  so 
dreaded  by  the  last  speaker.  He  tells  me  it  is  a  pol- 
icy of  reckless  abandonment.  But  abandonment  to 
what  ?  Abandonment  to  the  people !  And  the  ques- 
tion is,  do  we  trust  the  people  ?  I  do;  he  does  not! 
There,  I  venture  to  think,  is  the  real  difference 
between  us. 

"Yes,  I  am  not  ashamed  to  say  it,  I  trust  the 

People!  What  should  I  trust,  if  I  could  not  trust 

them  ?  What  else  is  a  nation  but  an  assemblage  of 

the  talents,  the  capacities,  the  virtues  of  the  citi- 

[22] 


A  MODERN  SYMPOSIUM 

zens  of  whom  it  is  composed  ?  To  utilize  those  tal- 
ents, to  evoke  those  capacities,  to  offer  scope  and 
opportunity  to  those  virtues,  must  be  the  end  and 
purpose  of  every  great  and  generous  policy ;  and  to 
that  end,  up  to  the  measure  of  my  powers,  I  have 
striven  to  minister,  not  rashly,  I  hope,  nor  with  im- 
patience, but  in  the  spirit  of  a  sober  and  assured 
faith. 

'  Such  is  my  conception  of  liberalism.  But  if  lib- 
eralism has  its  mission  at  home,  not  less  important 
are  its  principles  in  the  region  of  international  rela- 
tions. I  will  not  now  embark  on  the  troubled  sea  of 
foreign  policy.  But  on  one  point  I  will  touch,  since 
it  was  raised  by  the  last  speaker,  and  that  is  the 
question  of  our  foreign  trade.  In  no  department  of 
human  activity,  I  will  venture  to  say,  are  the  inten- 
tions of  the  Almighty  more  plainly  indicated,  than 
in  this  of  the  interchange  of  the  products  of  labour. 
To  each  part  of  the  habitable  globe  have  been 
assigned  its  special  gifts  for  the  use  and  delectation 
of  Man ;  to  every  nation  its  peculiar  skill,  its  appro- 
priate opportunities.  As  the  world  was  created  for 
labour,  so  it  was  created  for  exchange.  Across  the 
ocean,  bridged  at  last  by  the  indomitable  perti- 
[23] 


A  MODERN  SYMPOSIUM 

nacity  of  art,  the  granaries  of  the  new  world  call,  in 
their  inexhaustible  fecundity,  for  the  iron  and 
steel,  the  implements  and  engines  of  the  old.  The 
shepherd-kings  of  the  limitless  plains  of  Australia, 
the  Indian  ryot,  the  now  happily  emancipated  ne- 
gro of  Georgia  and  Carolina,  feed  and  are  fed  by 
the  factories  and  looms  of  Manchester  and  Brad- 
ford. Pall-Mall  is  made  glad  with  the  produce  of 
the  vineyards  of  France  and  Spain ;  and  the  Italian 
peasant  goes  clad  in  the  labours  of  the  Leicester 
artisan.  The  golden  chain  revolves,  the  silver 
buckets  rise  and  fall;  and  one  to  the  other  passes 
on,  as  it  fills  and  overflows,  the  stream  that  pours 
from  Nature's  cornucopia!  Such  is  the  law  or- 
dained by  the  Power  that  presides  over  the  des- 
tinies of  the  world ;  and  not  all  the  interferences  of 
man  with  His  beneficent  purposes  can  avail  alto- 
gether to  check  and  frustrate  their  happy  opera- 
tion. Yet  have  the  blind  cupidity,  the  ignorant  ap- 
prehensions of  national  zeal  dislocated,  so  far  as 
was  possible,  the  wheels  and  cogs  of  the  great 
machine,  hampered  its  working  and  limited  its 
uses.  And  if  there  be  anything  of  which  this  great 
nation  may  justly  boast,  it  is  that  she  has  been  the 
[24] 


A  MODERN  SYMPOSIUM 

first  to  tear  down  the  barriers  and  dams  of  a  per« 
verted  ingenuity,  and  to  admit  in  unrestricted  pleni- 
tude to  every  channel  of  her  verdant  meadows  the 
limpid  and  fertilizing  stream  of  trade. 

"  Verily  she  has  had  her  reward !  Search  the  re- 
cords of  history,  and  you  will  seek  in  vain  for 
a  prosperity  so  immense,  so  continuous,  so  pro- 
gressive, as  that  which  has  blessed  this  country 
in  the  last  half-century  of  her  annals.  This  ac- 
cess of  wealth  was  admitted  indeed  by  the  speaker 
who  preceded  me.  But  he  complained  that  we 
had  taken  no  account  of  the  changes  which 
the  new  system  was  introducing  into  the  char- 
acter and  occupations  of  the  people.  It  is  true; 
and  he  would  be  a  rash  man  who  should  venture 
to  forecast  and  to  determine  the  remoter  results 
of  such  a  policy;  or  should  jjirink  from  the  con- 
sequences of  liberty  on  the  ground  that  he  can- 
not anticipate  their  character.  Which  of  us  would 
have  the  courage,  even  if  he  had  the  power,  to  im- 
pose upon  a  nation  for  all  time  the  form  of  its 
economic  life,  the  type  of  its  character,  the  direc- 
tion of  its  enterprise  ?  The  possibilities  that  lie  in 
the  womb  of  Nature  are  greater  than  we  can  gauge; 
[25] 


A  MODERN  SYMPOSIUM 

we  can  but  facilitate  their  birth,  we  may  not  pre- 
scribe their  anatomy.  The  evils  of  the  day  call  for 
the  remedies  of  the  day;  but  none  can  anticipate 
with  advantage  the  necessities  of  the  future.  And 
meantime  what  cause  is  there  for  misgiving  ?  I  con- 
fess that  I  see  none.  The  policy  of  freedom  has 
been  justified,  I  contend,  by  its  results.  And  so  con- 
fident  am  I  of  this,  that  the  time,  I  believe,  is  not 
far  distant,  when  other  countries  will  awake  at  last 
to  their  own  true  interests  and  emulate,  not  more 
to  their  advantage  than  to  ours,  our  fiscal  legisla- 
tion. I  see  the  time  approaching  when  the  nations 
of  the  world,  laying  aside  their  political  animos- 
ities, will  be  knitted  together  in  the  peaceful 
rivalry  of  trade;  when  those  barriers  of  nationality 
which  belong  to  the  infancy  of  the  race  will  melt 
and  dissolve  in  the  sunshine  of  science  and  art; 
when  the  roar  of  the  cannon  will  yield  to  the  softer 
murmur  of  the  loom,  and  the  apron  of  the  artisan, 
the  blouse  of  the  peasant  be  more  honourable  than 
the  scarlet  of  the  soldier;  when  the  cosmopolitan 
armies  of  trade  will  replace  the  militia  of  death; 
when  that  which  God  has  joined  together  will  no 
longer  be  sundered  by  the  ignorance,  the  folly,  the 
[26] 


A  MODERN  SYMPOSIUM 

wickedness  of  man;  when  the  labour  and  the  in- 
vention of  one  will  become  the  heritage  of  all ;  and 
the  peoples  of  the  earth  meet  no  longer  on  the  field 
of  battle,  but  by  their  chosen  delegates,  as  in  the 
vision  of  our  greatest  poet,  in  the  '  Parliament  of 
Man,  the  Federation  of  the  World.'" 

WITH  this  peroration  Remenham  re- 
sumed his  seat.  He  had  spoken,  as 
indeed  was  his  habit,  rather  as  if  he 
were  addressing  a  public  meeting  than  a  company 
of  friends.  But  at  least  he  had  set  the  ball  rolling. 
To  many  of  those  present,  as  I  well  knew,  his  speech 
and  his  manner  must  have  been  eminently  pro- 
vocative; and  naturally  to  none  more  than  to 
Mendoza.  I  had,  therefore,  no  hesitation  in  sig- 
nalling out  the  Conservative  chief  to  give  us  the 
opposite  point  of  view.  He  responded  with  deliber- 
ation, lifting  from  his  chest  his  sinister  Jewish  face, 
and  slowly  unfolding  his  long  body,  while  a  malic- 
ious smile  played  about  his  mouth. 

"  One, "  he  began,  "  who  has  not  the  privilege  of 

immediate  access  to  the  counsels  of  the  Divine 

Being  cannot  but  feel  himself  at  a  disadvantage  in 

following  a  man  so  favoured  as  my  distinguished 

[27] 


A  MODERN  SYMPOSIUM 

friend.  The  disadvantage,  however,  is  one  to  which 
I  have  had,  perforce,  to  grow  accustomed  during 
long  years  of  parliamentary  strife.  I  have  resigned 
myself  to  creeping  where  he  soars,  to  guessing 
where  he  prophesies.  But  there  is  compensation 
everywhere.  And,  perhaps,  there  are  certain  points 
which  may  be  revealed  to  babes  and  sucklings, 
while  they  are  concealed  from  beings  more  au- 
gust. The  worm,  I  suppose,  must  be  aware  of  ex- 
crescences and  roughnesses  of  the  soil  which  es- 
cape the  more  comprehensive  vision  of  the  eagle; 
and  to  the  worm,  at  least,  these  are  of  more  im- 
portance than  mountain  ranges  and  oceans  which 
he  will  never  reach.  It  is  from  that  humble  point  of 
view  that  I  shall  offer  a  few  remarks  supplemen- 
tary to,  perhaps  even  critical  of,  the  eloquent 
apostrophe  we  have  been  permitted  to  enjoy. 

"  The  key-note  of  my  friend's  address  was  lib- 
erty. There  is  no  British  heart  which  does  not  beat 
higher  at  the  sound  of  that  word.  But  while  I  lis- 
tened to  his  impassioned  plea,  I  could  not  help 
wondering  why  he  did  not  propose  to  dispense  to 
us  in  even  larger  and  more  liberal  measure  the 
supreme  and  precious  gift  of  freedom.  True,  he 
[28] 


A  MODERN  SYMPOSIUM 

has  done  much  to  remove  the  barriers  that  sepa- 
rated nation  from  nation,  and  man  from  man.  But 
how  much  remains  to  be  accomplished  before  we 
can  be  truly  said  to  have  brought  ourselves  into 
line  with  Nature!  Consider,  for  example,  the  po- 
liceman !  Has  my  friend  ever  reflected  on  all  that  is 
implied  in  that  solemn  figure;  on  all  that  it  symbol- 
izes of  interference  with  the  purposes  of  a  benefi- 
cent Creator  ?  The  policeman  is  a  permanent  pub- 
lic defiance  of  Nature.  Through  him  the  weak  rule 
the  strong,  the  few  the  many,  the  intelligent  the 
fools.  Through  him  survive  those  whom  the  strug- 
gle for  existence  should  have  eliminated.  He  sub- 
stitutes the  unfit  for  the  fit.  He  dislocates  the 
economy  of  the  universe.  Under  his  shelter  take 
root  and  thrive  all  monstrous  and  parasitic 
growths.  Marriage  clings  to  his  skirts,  property 
nestles  in  his  bosom.  And  while  these  flourish, 
where  is  liberty  ?  The  law  of  Nature  we  all  know: 

'  The  good  old  rule,  the  ancient  plan 
That  he  should  take  who  has  the  power, 
And  he  should  keep  who  can  t ' 

"But  this,  by  the  witchcraft  of  property,  we 
have  set  aside.  Our  walls  of  brick  and  stone  we 
[29] 


A  MODERN  SYMPOSIUM 

have  manned  with  invisible  guards.  We  have 
thronged  with  fiery  faces  and  arms  the  fences  of 
our  gardens  and  parks.  The  plate-glass  of  our 
windows  we  have  made  more  impenetrable  than 
adamant.  To  our  very  infants  we  have  given  the 
strength  of  giants.  Babies  surfeit,  while  strong  men 
starve;  and  the  foetus  in  the  womb  stretches  out 
unformed  hands  to  annex  a  principality.  Is  this 
liberty  ?  Is  this  Nature  ?  No !  It  is  a  Merlin's  prison ! 
Yet,  monstrous,  it  subsists!  Has  our  friend,  then, 
no  power  to  dissolve  the  charm  ?  Or,  can  it  be  that 
he  has  not  the  will  ? 

"  Again,  can  we  be  said  to  be  free,  can  we  be  said 
to  be  in  harmony  with  Nature,  while  we  endure  the 
bonds  of  matrimony?  While  we  fetter  the  happy 
promiscuity  of  instinct,  and  subject  our  roving 
fancy  to  the  dominion  of  '  one  unchanging  wife  ? ' 
Here,  indeed,  I  frankly  admit,  Nature  has  her 
revenges;  and  an  actual  polygamy  flourishes  even 
under  the  aegis  of  our  law.  But  the  law  exists;  it  is 
the  warp  on  which,  by  the  woof  of  property,  we 
fashion  that  Nessus-shirt,  the  Family,  in  which,  we 
have  swathed  the  giant  energies  of  mankind.  But 
while  that  shirt  clings  close  to  every  limb,  what 
[30] 


A  MODERN  SYMPOSIUM 

avails  it,  in  the  name  of  liberty,  to  snap,  here  and 
there,  a  button  or  a  lace  ?  A  more  heroic  work  is 
required  of  the  great  protagonist,  if,  indeed,  he  will 
follow  his  mistress  to  the  end.  He  shakes  his  head. 
What !  Is  his  service,  then,  but  half-hearted  after 
all  ?  Or,  can  it  be,  that  behind  the  mask  of  the  god- 
dess he  begins  to  divine  the  teeth  and  claws  of  the 
brute  ?  But  if  nature  be  no  goddess,  how  can  we 
accept  her  as  sponsor  for  liberty  ?  And  if  liberty  be 
taken  on  its  own  merits  how  is  it  to  be  distinguish- 
ed from  anarchy  ?  How,  but  by  the  due  admixture 
of  coercion  ?  And,  that  admitted,  must  we  not  de- 
scend from  the  mountain  top  of  prophecy  to  the 
dreary  plains  of  political  compromise  ?  " 

Up  to  this  point  Mendoza  had  preserved  that 
tone  of  elaborate  irony  which,  it  will  be  remem- 
bered, was  so  disconcerting  to  English  audiences, 
and  stood  so  much  in  the  way  of  his  popularity. 
But  now  his  manner  changed.  Becoming  more  se- 
rious, and  I  fear  I  must  add,  more  dull  than  I  had 
ever  heard  him  before,  he  gave  us  what  I  sup- 
pose to  be  the  most  intimate  exposition  he  had  ever 
permitted  himself  to  offer  of  the  Conservative  point 
of  view  as  he  understood  it. 
[31] 


A  MODERN  SYMPOSIUM 
"  These, "  he  resumed,  "  are  questions  which  I 
must  leave  my  friend  to  answer  for  himself.  The 
ground  is  too  high  for  me.  I  have  no  skill  in  the 
flights  of  speculation.  I  take  no  pleasure  in  the 
enunciation  of  principles.  To  my  restricted  vision, 
placed  as  I  am  upon  the  earth,  isolated  facts  ob- 
trude themselves  with  a  capricious  particularity 
which  defies  my  powers  of  generalization.  And 
that,  perhaps,  is  the  reason  why  I  attached  myself 
to  the  party  to  which  I  have  the  honour  to  belong. 
For  it  is,  I  think,  the  party  which  sees  things  as 
they  are;  as  they  are,  that  is,  to  mere  human 
vision.  Remenham,  in  his  haste,  has  called  us  the 
party  of  reaction.  I  would  rather  say,  we  are  the 
party  of  realism.  We  have  in  view,  not  Man,  but 
Englishmen ;  not  ideal  polities,  but  the  British  Con- 
stitution; not  Political  Economy,  but  the  actual 
course  of  our  trade.  Through  this  great  forest  of 
fact,  this  tangle  of  old  and  new,  these  secular  oaks, 
sturdy  shrubs,  beautiful  parasitic  creepers,  we  move 
with  a  prudent  diffidence,  following  the  old  tracks, 
endeavouring  to  keep  them  open,  but  hesitating  to 
cut  new  routes  till  we  are  clear  as  to  the  goal  for 
which  we  are  asked  to  sacrifice  our  finest  timber. 
[32] 


A  MODERN  SYMPOSIUM 

Fundamental  changes  we  regard  as  exceptional 
and  pathological.  Yet,  being  bound  by  no  theories, 
when  we  are  convinced  of  their  necessity,  we  in- 
augurate them  boldly  and  carry  them  through  to 
the  end.  And  thus  it  is  that  having  decided  that  the 
time  had  come  to  call  the  people  to  the  councils  of 
the  nation,  we  struck  boldly  and  once  for  all  by 
a  measure  which  I  will  never  admit  —  and  here  I 
regret  that  Cantilupe  is  not  with  me  —  which  I 
will  never  admit  to  be  at  variance  with  the  best 
and  soundest  traditions  of  conservatism. 

"  But  such  measures  are  exceptional,  and  we  hope 
they  will  be  final.  We  take  no  delight  in  tinkering 
the  constitution.  The  mechanism  of  government 
we  recognize  to  be  only  a  means;  the  test  of  the 
statesman  is  his  power  to  govern.  And  remaining, 
as  we  do,  inaccessible  to  that  gospel  of  liberty  of 
which  our  opponents  have  had  a  special  revela- 
tion, we  find  in  the  existing  state  of  England  much 
that  appears  to  us  to  need  control.  We  are  unable 
to  share  the  optimism  which  animates  Remenham 
and  his  friends  as  to  the  direction  and  effects  of  the 
new  forces  of  industry.  Above  the  whirr  of  the 
spindle  and  the  shaft  we  hear  the  cry  of  the  poor. 
[33] 


A  MODERN  SYMPOSIUM 

Behind  our  flourishing  warehouses  and  shops  we 
see  the  hovels  of  the  artisan.  We  watch  along  our 
highroads  the  long  procession  of  labourers  de- 
serting their  ancestral  villages  for  the  cities;  we 
trace  them  to  the  slum  and  the  sweater's  den; 
we  follow  them  to  the  poorhouse  and  the  prison ;  we 
see  them  disappear  engulfed  in  the  abyss,  while 
others  press  at  their  heels  to  take  their  place  and 
share  their  destiny.  And  in  face  of  all  this  we  do  not 
think  it  to  be  our  duty  to  fold  our  arms  and  invoke 
the  principle  of  liberty.  We  feel  that  we  owe  it  to 
the  nation  to  preserve  intact  its  human  heritage, 
the  only  source  of  its  greatness  and  its  wealth ;  and 
we  are  prepared,  with  such  wisdom  as  we  have,  to 
legislate  to  that  end,  undeterred  by  the  fear  of  in- 
curring the  charge  of  socialism. 

"  But  while  we  thus  concern  ourselves  with  the 
condition  of  these  islands,  we  have  not  forgotten 
that  we  have  relations  to  the  world  outside.  If, 
indeed,  we  could  share  the  views  to  which  Remen- 
ham  has  given  such  eloquent  expression,  this  is  a 
matter  which  would  give  us  little  anxiety.  He  be- 
holds, as  in  a  vision,  the  era  of  peace  and  good- will 
ushered  in  by  the  genius  of  commerce.  By  a  mys- 
[34] 


A  MODERN  SYMPOSIUM 

terious  dispensation  of  Providence  he  sees  cu- 
pidity and  competition  furthering  the  ends  of  char- 
ity and  peace.  But  here  once  more  I  am  unable  to 
follow  his  audacious  flight.  Confined  to  the  sphere 
of  observation,  I  cannot  but  note  that  in  the  long 
and  sanguinary  course  of  history  there  has  been  no 
cause  so  fruitful  of  war  as  the  rivalries  of  trade. 
Our  own  annals  at  every  point  are  eloquent  of  this 
truth ;  nor  do  I  see  anything  in  the  conditions  of  the 
modern  world  that  should  limit  its  application.  We 
have  been  told  that  all  nations  will  adopt  our  fiscal 
policy.  Why  should  they,  unless  it  is  to  their  in- 
terest ?  We  adopted  it  because  we  thought  it  was 
to  ours ;  and  we  shall  abandon  it  if  we  ever  change 
our  opinion.  And  when  I  say '  interest'  I  would  not 
be  understood  to  mean  economic  interest  in  the 
narrower  sense.  A  nation,  like  an  individual,  I  con- 
ceive, has  a  personality  to  maintain.  It  must  be  its 
object  not  to  accumulate  wealth  at  all  costs,  but  to 
develope  and  maintain  capacity,  to  be  powerful, 
energetic,  many-sided,  and  above  all  independent. 
Whether  the  policy  we  have  adopted  will  continue 
to  guarantee  this  result,  I  am  not  prophet  enough  to 
Venture  to  affirm.  But  if  it  does  not,  I  cannot  doubt 
[35] 


A  MODERN  SYMPOSIUM 

that  we  shall  be  driven  to  revise  it.  Nor  can  I  believe 
that  other  nations,  not  even  our  own  colonies,  will 
follow  us  in  our  present  policy,  if  to  do  so  would  be 
to  jeopardy  their  rising  industries  and  unduly  to 
narrow  the  scope  of  their  economic  energies.  I  do 
not,  then,  I  confess,  look  forward  with  enthusiasm 
or  with  hope  to  the  Crystal-Palace  millennium  that 
inspired  the  eloquence  of  Remenham.  I  see  the  fu- 
ture pregnant  with  wars  and  rumours  of  wars.  And 
in  particular  I  see  this  nation,  by  virtue  of  itswealth, 
its  power,  its  unparalleled  success,  the  target  for 
the  envy,  the  hatred,  the  cupidity  of  all  the  peoples 
of  Europe.  I  see  them  looking  abroad  for  outlets 
for  their  expanding  population,  only  to  find  every 
corner  of  the  habitable  globe  preoccupied  by  the 
English  race  and  overshadowed  by  the  English 
flag.  But  from  this,  which  is  our  main  danger,  I 
conjure  my  main  hope  for  the  future.  England  is 
more  than  England.  She  has  grown  in  her  sleep. 
She  has  stretched  over  every  continent  huge  em- 
bryo limbs  which  wait  only  for  the  beat  of  her 
heart,  the  motion  of  her  spirit,  to  assume  their  form 
and  function  as  members  of  one  great  body  of  em- 
pire. The  spirit,  I  think,  begins  to  stir,  the  blood  to 
[36] 


A  MODERN  SYMPOSIUM 

circulate.  Our  colonies,  I  believe,  are  not  destined 
to  drop  from  us  like  ripe  fruit;  our  dependencies 
will  not  fall  to  other  masters.  The  nation  sooner  or 
later  will  wake  to  its  imperial  mission.  The  hearts 
of  Englishmen  beyond  the  seas  will  beat  in  unison 
with  ours.  And  the  federation  I  foresee  is  not  the 
federation  of  Mankind,  but  that  of  the  British  race 
throughout  the  world. " 

He  paused,  and  in  the  stillness  that  followed 
we  became  aware  of  the  gathering  dusk.  The  first 
stars  were  appearing,  and  the  young  moon  was 
low  in  the  west.  From  the  shadow  below  we  heard 
the  murmur  of  a  fountain,  and  the  call  of  a  night- 
ingale sounded  in  the  wood.  Something  in  the 
time  and  the  place  must  have  worked  on  Men- 
doza's  mood;  for  when  he  resumed  it  was  in  a 
different  key. 

"Such,"  he  began,  "is  my  vision,  if  I  permit 
myself  to  dream.  But  who  shall  say  whether  it  is 
more  than  a  dream?  There  is  something  in  the 
air  to-night  which  compels  candour.  And  if  I 
am  to  tell  my  inmost  thought,  I  must  confess  on 
what  a  flood  of  nescience  we,  who  seem  to  direct 
the  affairs  of  nations,  are  borne  along  together  with 
[37] 


A  MODERN  SYMPOSIUM 

those  whom  we  appear  to  control.  We  are  permit- 
ted, like  children,  to  lay  our  hands  upon  the  reins; 
but  it  is  a  dark  and  unknown  genius  who  drives. 
We  are  his  creatures;  and  it  is  his  ends,  not  ours, 
that  are  furthered  by  our  contests,  our  efforts,  our 
ideals.  In  the  arena  Remenham  and  I  must  play 
our  part,  combat  bravely,  and  be  ready  to  die  when 
the  crowd  turn  down  their  thumbs.  But  here  in  a 
moment  of  withdrawal,  I  at  least  cannot  fail  to  re- 
cognize behind  the  issues  that  divide  us  the  tie  of  a 
common  destiny.  We  shall  pass  and  a  new  gener- 
ation will  succeed  us;  a  generation  to  whom  our 
ideals  will  be  irrevelant,  our  catch-words  empty, 
our  controversies  unintelligible. 

*  Hi  motus  animorum  atque  haec  certamina  tanta 
Pulveris  exigui  jactu  compressa  quiescunt.' 

"The  dust  of  oblivion  will  bury  our  debates. 
Something  we  shall  have  achieved,  but  not  what 
we  intended.  My  dream  may,  perhaps,  be  fur- 
thered by  Remenham,  and  his  by  me,  or,  it  may 
be,  neither  his  nor  mine  by  either.  The  Providence 
whose  purposes  he  so  readily  divines  is  dark  to  me. 
And  perhaps,  for  that  reason,  I  am  able  to  regard 
[38] 


A  MODERN  SYMPOSIUM 

him  with  more  charity  than  he  has  always  been  will- 
ing, I  suspect,  to  extend  to  me.  This,  at  any  rate, 
is  the  moment  of  truce.  The  great  arena  is  empty, 
the  silent  benches  vanish  into  the  night.  Under  the 
glimmer  of  the  moon  figures  more  than  mortal 
haunt  the  scene  of  our  ephemeral  contests.  It  is 
they  which  stand  behind  us  and  deal  the  blows 
which  seem  to  be  ours.  When  we  are  laid  in  the 
dust  they  will  animate  other  combatants;  when 
our  names  are  forgotten  they  will  blazon  others  in 
perishable  gold.  Why,  then,  should  we  strive  and 
cry,  even  now  in  the  twilight  hour?  The  same 
sky  encompasses  us,  the  same  stars  are  above  us. 
What  are  my  opinions,  what  are  Remenham's  ? 
Froth  on  the  surface !  The  current  bears  all  alike 
along  to  the  destined  end.  For  a  moment  let  us 
meet  and  feel  its  silent,  irresistible  force;  and  in 
this  moment  reach  across  the  table  the  hand  of 
peace. " 

With  that  he  stretched  his  hand  to  Remenham, 
with  a  kind  of  pathos  of  appeal  that  the  other, 
though  I  think  he  did  not  altogether  like  it,  could 
hardly  refuse  to  entertain.  It  was  theatrical,  it  was 
un-English,  but  somehow,  it  was  successful.  And 
[39] 


A  MODERN  SYMPOSIUM 

the  whole  episode,  the  closing  words  and  the 
incomparable  gesture,  left  me  with  a  sense  as 
though  a  curtain  had  been  drawn  upon  a  phase  of 
our  history.  Mendoza,  somehow,  had  shut  out  Re- 
menham,  even  more  than  himself,  from  the  field  on 
which  the  issues  of  the  future  were  to  be  fought. 
And  it  was  this  feeling  that  led  me,  really  a  little 
against  my  inclination,  to  select  as  the  next  speaker 
the  man  who  of  all  who  made  up  our  company,  in 
opinions,  was  the  most  opposed  to  Remenham, 
and  in  temperament  to  Mendoza.  My  choice  was 
Allison,  more  famous  now  than  he  was  then,  but 
known  even  at  that  time  as  an  unsparing  critic  ot 
both  parties.  He  responded  readily  enough ;  and  as 
he  began  a  spell  seemed  to  snap.  The  night  and  the 
hour  were  forgotten,  and  we  were  back  on  the 
dusty  field  of  controversy. 

[ '  ITHiHIS  is  all   very  touching,"  he  began, 
"  but  Mendoza  is  shaking  hands  with 
M        the  wrong  person.    He  's  much  nearer 
to  me  than  he  is  to  Remenham,  and  I  don't  at  all  de- 
spair of  converting  him.  For  he  does  at  least  under- 
stand that  the  character  of  every  society  depends 
upon  its  law  of  property;  and  he  even  seems  to 
[40] 


A  MODERN  SYMPOSIUM 

have  a  suspicion  that  the  law,  as  we  have  it,  is  not 
what  you  would  call  absolute  perfection.  It 's  true 
that  he  shows  no  particular  inclination  to  alter  it. 
But  that  may  come;  and  I  'm  not  without  hope  of 
seeing,  before  I  die,  a  Tory-Socialist  party.  Remen- 
ham's  is  a  different  case,  and  I  fear  there  's  nothing 
to  be  made  of  him.  He  does,  I  believe,  really  think 
that  in  some  extraordinary  way  the  law  of  prop- 
erty, like  the  Anglican  Church,  is  one  of  the  dis- 
pensations of  Providence;  and  that  if  he  removes 
all  other  restrictions,  leaving  that,  he  will  have 
what  he  calls  a  natural  society.  But  Nature,  as 
Mendoza  has  pointed  out,  is  anarchy.  Civilization 
means  restriction;  and  so  does  socialism.  So  far 
from  being  anarchy,  it  is  the  very  antithesis  of  it. 
Anarchy  is  the  goal  of  liberalism,  if  liberalism 
could  ever  be  persuaded  to  be  logical.  So  the  scare- 
crow of  anarchy,  at  least,  need  not  frighten  away 
any  would-be  convert  to  socialism.  There  remains, 
it  is  true,  the  other  scarecrow,  revolution ;  and  that, 
I  admit,  has  more  life  in  it.  Socialism  is  revolution- 
ary; but  so  is  liberalism,  or  was,  while  it  was  any- 
thing. Revolution  does  not  imply  violence.  On  the 
contrary,  violence  is  the  abortion  of  revolution.  Do 
[41] 


A  MODERN  SYMPOSIUM 

I,  for  instance,  look  like  a  Marat  or  a  Danton  ?  I 
ask  you,  candidly!" 

He  certainly  did  not.  On  the  contrary,  with  his 
short  squat  figure,  pointed  beard  and  spectacles, 
he  presented  a  curious  blend  of  the  middle-class 
Englishman  and  the  German  savant.  There  was  a 
burst  of  laughter  at  his  question,  in  which  he 
joined  himself.  But  when  he  resumed  it  was  in  a 
more  serious  tone  and  somewhat  in  the  manner  of 
a  lecturer.  It  was  indeed,  at  that  time,  very  largely 
by  lectures  that  he  carried  on  his  propaganda. 

"No,"  he  said,  "socialism  may  roar;  but,  in 
England  at  any  rate,  it  roars  as  gently  as  any  suck- 
ing-dove. Revolution  I  admit  is  the  goal;  but  the 
process  is  substitution.  We  propose  to  transform 
society  almost  without  any  one  knowing  it;  to 
work  from  the  foundation  upwards  without  unduly 
disturbing  the  superstructure.  By  a  mere  adjust- 
ment of  rates  and  taxes  we  shall  redistribute  prop- 
erty; by  an  extension  of  the  powers  of  local  bodies 
we  shall  nationalize  industry.  But  in  all  this  there 
need  be  no  shock,  no  abrupt  transition.  On  the 
contrary,  it  is  essential  to  our  scheme  that  there 
should  not  be.  We  are  men  of  science  and  we  real- 
[42] 


A  MODERN  SYMPOSIUM 

ize  that  the  whole  structure  of  society  rests  upon 
habit.  With  the  new  organization  must  therefore 
grow  the  new  habit  that  is  to  support  it.  To  precipi- 
tate organic  change  is  merely  to  court  reaction. 
That  is  the  lesson  of  all  revolution;  and  it  is  one 
which  English  socialists,  at  any  rate,  have  learnt. 
We  think,  moreover,  that  capitalist  society  is,  by 
its  own  momentum,  travelling  towards  the  goal 
which  we  desire.  Every  consolidation  of  business 
upon  a  grand  scale  implies  the  development  of  pre- 
cisely those  talents  of  organization  without  which 
the  socialistic  state  could  not  come  into  being  or 
maintain  itself;  while  at  the  same  time  the  substi- 
tution of  monopoly  for  competition  removes  the 
only  check  upon  the  power  of  capital  to  exploit  so- 
ciety, and  brings  home  to  every  citizen  in  his  ten- 
derest  point  —  his  pocket  —  the  necessity  for  that 
public  control  from  which  he  might  otherwise  be 
inclined  to  shrink.  Capitalist  society  is  thus  pre- 
paring its  own  euthanasia;  and  we  socialists  ought 
to  be  regarded  not  as  assassins  of  the  old  order,  but 
as  midwives  to  deliver  it  of  the  child  with  which  it 
is  in  travail. 

"  That  child  will  be  a  society  not  of  liberty  but  of 
[43]   ' 


A  MODERN  SYMPOSIUM 

regulation.  It  is  here  that  we  join  issue  not  only 
with  doctrinaire  liberals,  but  with  that  large  body 
of  ordinary  common-sense  Englishmen  who  feel  a 
general  and  instinctive  distrust  of  all  state  inter- 
ference. That  distrust,  I  would  point  out,  is  really 
an  anachronism.  It  dates  from  a  time  when  the 
state  was  at  once  incompetent  and  unpopular, 
from  the  days  of  monarchic  or  aristocratic  govern- 
ment carried  on  frankly  in  the  interests  of  particu- 
lar classes  or  persons.  But  the  democratic  revolu- 
tion and  the  introduction  of  bureaucracy  has 
swept  all  that  away;  and  governments  in  every 
civilized  country  are  now  moving  towards  the  ideal 
of  an  expert  administration  controlled  by  an  alert 
and  intelligent  public  opinion.  Much,  it  is  true,  has 
yet  to  be  done  before  that  ideal  will  be  realized.  In 
some  countries,  notably  in  the  United  States,  the 
necessity  of  the  expert  has  hardly  made  itself  felt. 
In  others,  such  as  Germany,  popular  control  is 
very  inadequately  provided  for.  But  the  tendency 
is  clear;  and  nowhere  clearer  than  in  this  country. 
Here  at  any  rate  we  may  hopefully  look  forward  to 
a  continual  extension  both  of  the  activity  and  of 
the  intelligence  of  public  officials;  while  at  the 
[44] 


A  MODERN  SYMPOSIUM 

same  time,  by  an  appropriate  development  of  the 
representative  machinery,  we  may  guard  ourselves 
against  the  danger  of  an  irresponsible  bureaucracy. 
The  problem  of  reconciling  administrative  effi- 
ciency with  popular  control  is  no  doubt  a  difficult 
one ;  but  I  feel  confident  that  it  can  be  solved.  This 
perhaps  is  hardly  the  place  to  develop  my  favourite 
idea  of  the  professional  representative;  but  I  may 
be  permitted  to  refer  to  it  in  passing.  By  a  profes- 
sional representative  I  mean  one  trained  in  a  scien- 
tific and  systematic  way  to  elicit  the  real  opinion  of 
his  constituents,  and  to  embody  it  in  practicable 
proposals.  He  will  have  to  study  what  they  really 
want,  not  what  they  think  they  want,  and  to  dis- 
cover for  himself  in  what  way  it  can  be  obtained. 
Such  men  need  not  be  elected;  indeed  I  am  in- 
clined to  think  that  the  plan  of  popular  election  has 
had  its  day.  The  essential  is  that  they  should  be  se- 
lected by  some  test  of  efficiency,  such  as  examina- 
tion or  previous  record,  and  that  they  should  keep 
themselves  in  constant  touch  with  their  constitu- 
ents. But  I  must  not  dwell  upon  details.  My  main 
object  is  to  show  that  when  government  is  in  the 
hands  of  expert  administrators,  controlled  by  ex- 
[45] 


A  MODERN  SYMPOSIUM 

pert  representatives,  there  need  be  no  anxiety  felt 
in  extending  indefinitely  the  sphere  of  the  state. 

"  This  extension  will  of  course  be  primarily  econ- 
omic, for,  as  is  now  generally  recognized,  the  whole 
character  of  a  society  depends  upon  its  economic 
organization.  Revolution,  if  it  is  to  be  profound, 
must  begin  with  the  organization  of  industry;  but 
it  does  not  follow  that  it  will  end  there.  It  is  a  libel 
on  the  socialist  ideal  to  call  it  materialistic,  to  say 
that  it  is  indifferent  or  hostile  to  the  higher  activ- 
ities. No  one,  to  begin  with,  is  more  conscious  than 
a  true  socialist  of  the  importance  of  science.  Not 
only  is  the  sociology  on  which  his  position  is  based 
a  branch  of  science;  but  it  is  a  fundamental  part  of 
his  creed  that  the  progress  of  man  depends  upon 
his  mastery  of  Nature,  and  that  for  acquiring  that 
mastery  science  is  his  only  weapon.  Again,  it  is  ab- 
surd to  accuse  us  of  indifference  to  ethics.  Our 
standards,  indeed,  may  not  be  the  same  as  those  of 
bourgeois  society;  if  they  were,  that  would  be  their 
condemnation ;  for  a  new  economic  regime  neces- 
sarily postulates  a  new  ethic.  But  every  regime 
requires  and  produces  its  appropriate  standards; 
and  the  socialist  regime  will  be  no  exception.  Our 
[46] 


A  MODERN  SYMPOSIUM 

feeling  upon  that  subject  is  simply  that  we  need 
not  trouble  about  the  ethic  because  it  will  fol- 
low of  itself  upon  the  economic  revolution.  For, 
as  we  read  history,  the  economic  factor  deter- 
mines all  the  others.  '  Man  ist  was  er  isst,'  as  the 
German  said;  and  morals,  art,  religion,  all  the  so- 
called  '  ideal  activities/  are  just  allotropic  forms  of 
bread  and  meat.  They  will  come  by  themselves  if 
they  are  wanted;  and  in  the  socialist  state  they 
will  be  better  not  worse  provided  for  than  under 
the  present  competitive  system.  For  here  again  the 
principle_of_the  expert  jwilL come  in.  It  will  be 
the  business  of  the  state,  if  it  determines  that  such 
activities  ought  to  be  encouraged,  to  devise  a  ma- 
chinery for  selecting  and  educating  men  of  genius, 
in  proportion  to  the  demand,  and  assigning  to 
them  their  appropriate  sphere  of  activity  and  their 
sufficient  wage.  This  will  apply,  I  conceive,  equally 
to  the  ministers  of  religion  as  to  the  professors  of 
the  various  branches  of  art.  Nor  would  I  suggest 
that  the  socialist  community  should  establish  any 
one  form  of  religion,  seeing  that  we  are  not  in  a 
position  to  determine  scientifically  which,  or 
whether  any,  are  true.  I  would  give  encourage- 
[47] 


A  MODERN  SYMPOSIUM 

ment  to  all  and  several,  of  course  under  the  neces- 
sary restrictions,  in  the  hope  that,  in  course  of  time, 
by  a  process  of  natural  selection,  that  one  will  sur- 
vive which  is  the  best  adapted  to  the  new  environ  - 
ment.  But  meantime  the  advantage  of  the  new  over 
the  old  organization  is  apparent.  We  shall  hear  no 
more  of  genius  starving  in  a  garret;  of  ill-paid  or 
over-paid  ministers  of  the  gospel ;  of  privileged  and 
unprivileged  sects.  All  will  be  orderly,  regular,  and 
secure,  as  it  should  be  in  a  civilized  state;  and  for 
the  first  time  in  history  society  will  be  in  a  posi- 
tion to  extract  the  maximum  of  good  from  those 
strange  and  irregular  human  organizations  whose 
subsistence  hitherto  has  been  so  precarious  and 
whose  output  so  capricious  and  uncertain.  A  so- 
cialist state,  if  I  may  say  so,  will  pigeon-hole  re- 
ligion, literature  and  art;  and  if  these  are  really 
normal  and  fruitful  functions  they  cannot  fail, 
like  other  functions,  to  profit  by  such  treat- 
ment. 

"  I  have  thus  indicated  in  outline  the  main  feat- 
ures of  the  socialist  scheme  —  an  economic  revolu- 
tion  accomplished    by  a  gradual   and   peaceful 
transition  and  issuing  in  a  system  of  collectivism  so 
[48] 


A  MODERN  SYMPOSIUM 

complete  as  to  include  all  the  human  activities  that 
are  really  valuable.  But  what  I  should  find  it  hard 
to  convey,  except  to  an  audience  prepared  by  years 
of  study,  is  the  enthusiasm  or  rather  the  grounds 
for  the  enthusiasm,  that  animates  us.  Whereas  all 
other  political  parties  are  groping  in  the  dark,  rely- 
ing upon  partial  and  outworn  formulae,  in  which 
even  they  themselves  have  ceased  to  believe,  we 
alone  advance  in  the  broad  daylight,  along  a  road 
whose  course  we  clearly  trace  backward  and  for- 
ward, towards  a  goal  distinctly  seen  on  the  horizon. 
History  and  analysis  are  our  guides ;  history  for 
the  first  time  comprehended,  analysis  for  the  first 
time  scientifically  applied.  Unlike  all  the  revolu- 
tionists of  the  past,  we  derive  our  inspiration  not 
from  our  own  intuitions  or  ideals,  but  from  the  as- 
certained course  of  the  world.  We  co-operate  with 
the  universe ;  and  hence  at  once  our  confidence  and 
our  patience.  We  can  afford  to  wait  because  the 
force  of  events  is  bearing  us  on  of  its  own  accord  to 
the  end  we  desire.  Even  if  we  rest  on  our  oars,  none 
the  less  we  are  drifting  onwards;  or  if  we  are 
checked  for  a  moment  the  eddy  in  which  we  are 
caught  is  merely  local.  Alone  among  all  politicians 
[49] 


A  MODERN  SYMPOSIUM 

we  have  faith;  but  our  faith  is  built  upon  science, 
and  it  is  therefore  a  faith  which  will  endure." 

WITH  that  Allison  concluded;  and  al- 
most before  he  had  done  MacCarthy , 
without  waiting  my  summons,  had 
leapt  to  his  feet  and  burst  into  an  impassioned  har- 
angue. With  flashing  eyes  and  passionate  gestures 
he  delivered  himself  as  follows,  his  Irish  accent 
contrasting  pleasantly  with  that  of  the  last  speaker. 
"May  God  forgive  me,"  he  cried,  "that  ever 
I  have  called  myself  a  socialist,  if  this  is  what 
socialism  means!  But  it  does  not!  I  will  rescue 
the  word!  I  will  reclaim  it  for  its  ancient  no- 
bler sense  —  socialism  the  dream  of  the  world,  the 
light  of  the  grail  on  the  marsh,  the  mystic  city  of 
Sarras,  the  vale  of  Avalon!  Socialism  the  soul  of 
liberty,  the  bond  of  brotherhood,  the  seal  of  equal- 
ity! Who  is  he  that  with  sacrilegious  hands  would 
seize  our  Ariel  and  prison  him  in  that  tree  of  in- 
iquity the  State  ?  Day  is  not  farther  from  night,  nor 
Good  from  Evil,  than  the  socialism  of  the  Revolu- 
tion from  this  of  the  desk  and  the  stool,  from  this 
enemy  wearing  our  uniform  and  flaunting  our  coat 
of  arms.  For  nigh  upon  a  century  we  have  fought 
[50] 


A  MODERN  SYMPOSIUM 

for  liberty ;  and  now  they  would  make  us  gaolers 
to  bind  our  own  souls.  1789, 1830, 1848  —  are  these 
dates  branded  upon  our  hearts,  only  to  stamp 
us  as  patient  sheep  in  the  flock  of  bureaucracy  ? 
No!  They  are  the  symbols  of  the  spirit;  and 
those  whom  they  set  apart,  outcasts  from  the  king- 
doms of  this  world  and  citizens  of  the  kingdom  of 
God,  wherever  they  wander  are  living  flames  to 
consume  institutions  and  laws,  and  to  light  in  the 
hearts  of  men  the  fires  of  pity  and  wrath  and  love. 
Our  city  is  not  built  with  blue  books,  nor  cemented 
with  office  dust;  nor  is  it  bonds  of  red-tape  that 
make  and  keep  it  one.  No!  it  is  the  attraction, 
uncompelled,  of  spirits  made  free;  the  shadow- 
ing into  outward  form  of  the  eternal  joy  of  the 
soul!" 

He  paused  and  seemed  to  collect  himself;  and 
then  in  a  quieter  tone:  "  Socialism,"  he  proceeded, 
"is  one  with  anarchy!  I  know  the  terrors  of  that 
word ;  but  they  are  the  terrors  of  an  evil  conscience ; 
for  it  is  only  an  order  founded  on  iniquity  that 
dreads  disorder.  Why  do  you  fear  for  your  property 
and  lives,  you  who  fear  anarchy  ?  It  is  because  you 
have  stolen  the  one  and  misde voted  the  other;  be- 
[51] 


A  MODERN  SYMPOSIUM 

cause  you  have  created  by  your  laws  the  man  you 
call  the  criminal;  because  you  have  bred  hunger, 
and  hunger  has  bred  rage.  For  this  I  do  not  blame 
you,  any  more  than  I  blame  myself.  You  are  your- 
selves victims  of  the  system  you  maintain,  and 
your  enemy,  no  less  than  mine,  if  you  knew  it,  is 
government.  For  government  means  compulsion, 
exclusion,  distinction,  separation;  while  anarchy  is 
freedom,  union  and  love.  Government  is  based  on 
egotism  and  fear,  anarchy  on  fraternity.  It  is  be- 
cause we  divide  ourselves  into  nations  that  we  en- 
dure the  oppression  of  armaments ;  because  we  iso- 
late ourselves  as  individuals  that  we  invoke  the 
protection  of  laws.  If  I  did  not  take  what  my 
brother  needs  I  should  not  fear  that  he  would  take 
it  from  me;  if  I  did  not  shut  myself  off  from  his 
want,  I  should  not  deem  it  less  urgent  than  my 
own.  All  governing  persons  are  persons  set  apart. 
And  therefore  it  is  that  whether  they  will  or  no 
they  are  oppressors,  or,  at  best,  obstructors.  Shut 
off  from  the  breath  of  popular  instinct,  which  is  the 
breath  of  life,  they  cannot  feel,  and  therefore  can- 
not think,  rightly.  And,  in  any  case,  how  could  they 
understand,  even  with  the  best  will  in  the  world, 
[52] 


A  MODERN  SYMPOSIUM 

the  multifarious  interests  they  are  expected  to  con- 
trol ?  A  man  knows  nothing  but  what  he  practises; 
and  in  every  branch  of  work  only  those  are  fitted  to 
direct  who  are  themselves  the  workers.  Intellec- 
tually, as  well  as  morally,  government  is  eternally 
bankrupt;  and  what  is  called  representative  gov- 
ernment is  no  better  than  any  other,  for  the  gov- 
ernors are  equally  removed  in  sympathy  and 
knowledge  from  the  governed.  Nay,  experience 
shows,  if  we  would  but  admit  it,  that  under  no 
system  have  the  rulers  been  more  incompetent  and 
corrupt  than  under  this  which  we  call  democratic. 
Is  not  the  very  word  'politician'  everywhere  a 
term  of  reproach?  Is  not  a  government-office 
everywhere  synonymous  with  incapacity  and 
sloth  ?  What  a  miserable  position  is  that  of  a  mem- 
ber of  Parliament,  compelled  to  give  his  vote  on 
innumerable  questions  of  which  he  does  not  un- 
derstand the  rudiments,  and  giving  it  at  the  dicta- 
tion of  party  chiefs  who  themselves  are  controlled 
by  the  blind  and  brainless  mechanism  of  the  cau- 
cus !  The  people  are  the  slaves  of  their  representa- 
tives, the  representatives  of  their  chiefs,  and  the 
chiefs  of  a  conscienceless  machine !  And  that  is  the 
[53] 


A  MODERN  SYMPOSIUM 

last  word  of  governmental  science!  Oh,  divine 
spirit  of  man,  in  what  chains  have  you  bound  your- 
self, and  call  it  liberty,  and  clap  your  hands ! 

"And  then  comes  one  and  says,  'because  you 
are  free,  tie  yourself  tighter  and  tighter  in  your 
own  bonds ! '  Are  these  hands  not  yours  that  fasten 
the  knots  ?  Why  then  do  you  fear  ?  Here  is  a  limb 
free;  fasten  it  quick!  Your  head  still  turns;  come, 
fix  it  in  a  vice !  Now  you  are  fast !  Now  you  cannot 
move!  How  beautiful,  how  orderly,  how  secure! 
And  this,  and  this  is  socialism!  And  it  was  to  ac- 
complish this  that  France  opened  the  sluices  that 
have  deluged  the  earth  with  blood !  What !  we  have 
broken  the  bonds  of  iron  to  bind  ourselves  in  tape ! 
We  have  discrowned  Napoleon  to  crown  .  .  . 
to  crown.  .  .  ." 

He  looked  across  at  Allison,  and  suddenly  pulled 
himself  up.  Then,  attempting  the  tone  of  exposi- 
tion, "  There  is  only  one  way  out  of  it,"  he  resumed, 
"the  extension  of  free  co-operation  in  every  de- 
partment of  activity,  including  those  which  at  pres- 
ent are  regulated  by  the  State.  You  will  say  that 
this  is  impracticable ;  but  why  ?  Already,  in  all  that 
you  most  care  about,  that  is  the  method  you  ac- 
[54] 


A  MODERN  SYMPOSIUM 

tually  adopt.  The  activities  of  men  that  are  freest 
in  the  society  in  which  we  live  are  those  of  art  and 
science  and  amusement.  And  all  these  are,  I  will 
not  say  regulated  by,  but  expressed  in,  voluntary 
organizations,  clubs,  academies,  societies, what  you 
will.  The  Royal  Society  and  the  British  Associa- 
tion Club  are  types  of  the  right  way  of  organizing; 
and  it  is  a  way  that  should  and  must  be  applied 
throughout  the  whole  structure.  Every  trade  and 
business  should  be  conducted  by  a  society  volun- 
tarily formed  of  all  those  who  choose  to  engage  in 
it,  electing  and  removing  their  own  officials,  deter- 
mining their  own  policy,  and  co-operating  by  free 
arrangement  with  other  similar  bodies.  A  complex 
interweaving  of  such  associations,  with  order 
everywhere,  compulsion  nowhere,  is  the  form  of 
society  to  which  I  look  forward,  and  which  I  see 
already  growing  up  within  the  hard  skin  of  the 
older  organisms.  Rules  there  will  be  but  not  laws, 
rules  gladly  obeyed  because  they  will  have  been 
freely  adopted,  and  because  there  will  be  no  com- 
pulsion upon  any  one  to  remain  within  the  brother- 
hood that  approves  and  maintains  them.  Anarchy 
is  not  the  absence  of  order,  it  is  absence  of  force;  it 


A  MODERN  SYMPOSIUM 

is  the  free  outflowing  of  the  spirit  into  the  forms  in 
which  it  delights;  and  in  such  forms  alone,  as  they 
grow  and  change,  can  it  find  an  expression  which  is 
not  also  a  bondage.  You  will  say  this  is  chimerical. 
But  look  at  history!  Consider  the  great  achieve- 
ments of  the  Middle  Age !  Were  they  not  the  result 
of  just  such  a  movement  as  I  describe  ?  It  was  men 
voluntarily  associating  in  communes  and  grouping 
themselves  in  guilds  that  built  the  towers  and 
churches  and  adorned  them  with  the  glories  of  art 
that  dazzles  us  still  in  Italy  and  France.  The  his- 
tory of  the  growth  of  the  state,  of  public  authority 
and  compulsion,  is  the  history  of  the  decline  from 
Florence  and  Nuremberg  to  London  and  New 
York.  As  the  power  of  the  state  grows  the  energy 
of  the  spirit  dwindles ;  and  if  ever  Allison's  ideal 
should  be  realized,  if  ever  the  activity  of  the  state 
should  extend  through  and  through  to  every  de- 
partment of  life,  the  universal  ease  and  comfort 
which  may  thus  be  disseminated  throughout  so- 
ciety will  have  been  purchased  dearly  at  the  price 
of  the  soul.  The  denizens  of  that  city  will  be  fed, 
housed  and  clothed  to  perfection ;  only  —  and  it 
is  a  serious  drawback  —  only  they  will  be  dead. 
[56] 


A  MODERN  SYMPOSIUM 
"Oh!"  he  broke  out,  "if  I  could  but  get  you  to 
see  that  this  whole  order  under  which  you  live  is 
artificial  and  unnecessary !  But  we  are  befogged  by 
the  systems  we  impose  upon  our  imagination  and 
call  science.  We  have  been  taught  to  regard  history 
as  a  necessary  process,  until  we  come  to  think  it 
must  also  be  a  good  one ;  that  all  that  has  ever  hap- 
pened ought  to  have  happened  just  so  and  no 
otherwise.  And  thus  we  justify  everything  past  and 
present,  however  palpably  in  contradiction  with  our 
own  intuitions.  But  these  are  mere  figments  of  the 
brain.  History,  for  the  most  part,  believe  me,  is  one 
gigantic  error  and  crime.  It  ought  to  have  been 
other  than  it  was ;  and  we  ought  to  be  other  than  we 
are.  There  is  no  natural  and  inevitable  evolution 
towards  good ;  no  co-operating  with  the  universe, 
other  than  by  connivance  at  its  crimes.  That  little 
house  the  brain  builds  to  shelter  its  own  weakness 
must  be  torn  down  if  we  would  face  the  truth  and 
pursue  the  good.  Then  we  shall  see  amid  what 
blinding  storms  of  wind  and  rain,  what  darkness  of 
elements  hostile  or  indifferent,  our  road  lies  across 
the  mountains  towards  the  city  of  our  desire.  Then 
and  then  only  shall  we  understand  the  spirit  of 
[57] 


A  MODERN  SYMPOSIUM 

revolution.  That  there  are  things  so  bad  that  they 
can  only  be  burnt  up  by  fire;  that  there  are  ob- 
structions so  immense  that  they  can  only  be  ex- 
ploded by  dynamite;  that  the  work  of  destruction 
is  a  necessary  preliminary  to  the  work  of  creation, 
for  it  is  the  destruction  of  the  prison  walls  wherein 
the  spirit  is  confined;  and  that  in  that  work  the 
spirit  itself  is  the  only  agent,  unhelped  by  powers  of 
nature  or  powers  of  a  world  beyond  —  that  is  the 
creed  —  no,  I  will  not  say  the  creed,  that  is  the  in- 
sight and  vision  by  which  we  of  the  Revolution  live. 
By  that  I  believe  we  shall  triumph.  But  whether 
we  triumph  or  no,  our  life  itself  is  a  victory,  for  it  is 
a  life  lived  in  the  spirit.  To  shatter  material  bonds 
that  we  may  bind  the  closer  the  bonds  of  the  soul, 
to  slough  dead  husks  that  we  may  liberate  living 
forms,  to  abolish  institutions  that  we  may  evoke 
energies,  to  put  off  the  material  and  put  on  the 
spiritual  body,  that,  whether  we  fight  with  the 
tongue  or  the  sword,  is  the  inspiration  of  our  move- 
ment, that,  and  that  only,  is  the  true  and  inner 
meaning  of  anarchy. 

"  Anarchy  is  identified  with  violence;  and  I  will 
not  be  so  hypocritical  and  base  as  to  deny  that 
[58] 


A  MODERN  SYMPOSIUM 

violence  must  be  one  of  our  means  of  action. 
Force  is  the  midwife  of  society;  and  never  has 
radical  change  been  accomplished  without  it. 
What  came  by  the  sword  by  the  sword  must  be 
destroyed;  and  only  through  violence  can  violence 
come  to  an  end.  Nay,  I  will  go  further  and  con- 
fess, since  here  if  anywhere  we  are  candid,  that 
it  is  the  way  of  violence  to  which  I  feel  called  my- 
self, and  that  I  shall  die  as  I  have  lived,  an  active 
revolutionary.  But  because  force  is  a  way,  is  a  nec- 
essary way,  is  my  way,  I  do  not  imagine  that  there 
is  no  other.  Were  it  not  idle  to  wish,  I  could  rather 
wish  that  I  were  a  poet  or  a  saint,  to  serve  the  same 
Lord  by  the  gentler  weapons  of  the  spirit.  There 
are  anarchists  who  never  made  a  speech  and  never 
carried  a  rifle,  whom  we  know  as  our  brothers, 
though  perhaps  they  know  not  us.  Two  I  will  name 
who  live  for  ever,  Shelley,  the  first  of  poets,  were 
it  not  that  there  is  one  yet  greater  than  he,  the 
mystic  William  Blake.  We  are  thought  of  as  men  of 
blood ;  we  are  hounded  over  the  face  of  the  globe. 
And  who  of  our  persecutors  would  believe  that  the 
song  we  bear  in  our  hearts,  some  of  us,  I  may 
speak  at  least  for  one,  is  the  most  inspired,  the 
[59] 


A  MODERN  SYMPOSIUM 

most  spiritual  challenge  ever  flung  to  your  obtuse, 
flatulent,  stertorous  England : 

'  Bring  me  my  bow  of  burning  gold, 
Bring  me  my  arrows  of  desire, 
Bring  me  my  spear;  O  clouds  unfold  ! 
Bring  me  my  chariot  of  fire  I 

I  will  not  cease  from  mental  fight, 
Nor  shall  my  sword  sleep  in  my  hand, 
Till  I  have  built  Jerusalem 
In  England's  green  and  pleasant  land.' 

"  England !  No,  not  England,  but  Europe,  Amer- 
ica, the  world!  Where  is  Man,  the  new  Man,  there 
is  our  country.  But  the  new  Man  is  buried  in  the 
old ;  and  wherever  he  struggles  in  his  tomb,  wher- 
ever he  knocks  we  are  there  to  help  to  deliver  him. 
When  the  guards  sleep,  in  the  silence  of  the  dawn, 
rises  the  crucified  Christ.  And  the  angel  that  sits  at 
the  grave  is  the  angel  of  Anarchy." 

THUS  abruptly  he  brought  to  a  close  his  ex- 
traordinary peroration,  to  which  I  fear  the 
written  word  has  done  but  poor  justice.  A 
long  silence  followed;  in  it  there  was  borne  to  us 
from  below  the  murmur  of  the  hidden  fountain, 
the  wail  of  the  nightingale.  It  was  night  now;  the 
[60] 


A  MODERN  SYMPOSIUM 

moon  had  set,  and  the  sky  was  thick  with  stars. 
Among  them  one  planet  was  blazing  red,  just  op- 
posite where  I  sat;  and  I  saw  the  eyes  of  my 
neighbour,  Henry  Martin,  fixed  upon  it.  He  was 
so  lost  in  thought  that  he  did  not  hear  me  at  first 
when  I  asked  him  whether  he  would  care  to  fol- 
low on.  But  he  assented  willingly  enough  as  soon 
as  he  understood.  And  as  he  rose  I  could  not  help 
admiring,  as  I  had  often  done  before,  the  singular 
beauty  of  his  countenance.  His  books,  I  think,  do 
him  injustice;  they  are  cold  and  academic.  But 
there  was  nothing  of  that  in  the  man  himself; 
never  was  spirit  so  alert ;  and  that  alertness  was  re- 
flected in  his  person  and  bearing,  his  erect  figure, 
his  brilliant  eyes,  and  the  tumultuous  sweep  of  his 
now  whitening  beard.  He  stood  for  a  moment 
silent,  with  his  eyes  still  fixed  on  the  red  star;  then 
began  to  speak  as  follows : 

"If,"  he  said,  "it  be  true,  as  certain  mystics 
maintain,  that  the  world  is  an  effect  of  the  antag- 
onisms of  spiritual  beings,  having  their  stations  in 
opposite  quarters  of  the  heavens,  then,  I  think, 
MacCarthy  and  myself  must  represent  such  a  pair 
of  contraries,  and  move  in  an  antithetic  balance 
[61] 


A  MODERN  SYMPOSIUM 

through  the  cycle  of  experience.  I,  perhaps,  am  the 
Urthona  of  his  prophet  Blake,  and  he  the  Uri- 
zen,  or  vice  versa,  it  may  be,  I  cannot  tell.  But 
our  opposition  involves,  on  my  part  at  least,  no 
hostility;  and  looking  across  to  his  quarter  of  the 
sky  I  can  readily  conceive  how  proud  a  fate  it 
must  be  to  burn  there,  so  red,  so  sumptuous,  and 
so  superb.  My  own  light  is  pale  by  comparison,  a 
mere  green  and  blue;  yet  it  is  equally  essential; 
and  without  it  there  might  be  a  danger  that  he 
would  consume  the  world.  I  speak  in  metaphors, 
that  I  may  effect  as  gently  as  possible  the  neces- 
sary transition,  so  cold  and  abrupt,  from  the 
prophet  to  the  critic.  But  you,  sir,  in  calling  upon 
me,  knew  what  you  were  doing.  You  knew  well 
that  you  were  inviting  Aquarius  to  empty  his 
watering-pot  on  Mars.  And  Mars,  I  am  sure,  will 
pardon  me  if  I  obey.  Unlike  all  the  previous 
speakers,  I  am,  by  vocation,  a  sceptic;  and  the  vo- 
cation I  hold  to  be  a  noble  one.  There  are  people 
who  think,  perhaps,  indeed,  there  is  almost  no- 
body who  does  not  think,  that  action  is  the  sole  end 
of  life.  Criticism,  they  hold,  is  a  kind  of  disease  to 
which  some  people  are  subject,  and  which,  in  ex- 
[62] 


A  MODERN  SYMPOSIUM 

treme  cases,  may  easily  be  fatal.  The  healthy  state, 
on  the  other  hand,  they  think,  is  that  of  the  enthu- 
siast; of  the  man  who  believes  and  never  doubts. 
Now,  that  such  a  state  is  happy  I  am  very  ready  to 
admit;  but  I  cannot  hold  that  it  is  healthy.  How 
could  it  be,  unless  it  were  based  upon  a  sound, 
intellectual  foundation  ?  But  no  such  foundation 
has  been  or  will  be  reached  except  through  criti- 
cism; and  all  criticism  implies  and  engenders 
doubt.  A  man  who  has  never  experienced,  nay,  I 
will  say  who  is  not  constantly  reiterating,  the 
process  of  criticism,  is  a  man  who  has  no  right  to 
his  enthusiasm.  For  he  has  won  it  at  the  cost  of 
drugging  his  mind  with  passion;  and  that  I  main- 
tain is  a  bad  and  wrong  thing.  I  maintain  it  to  be 
bad  and  wrong  in  itself,  and  quite  apart  from  any 
consequences  it  may  produce;  for  it  is  a  primary 
duty  to  seek  what  is  true  and  eschew  what  is  false. 
But  even  from  the  secondary  point  of  view  of  con* 
sequences,  I  have  the  gravest  doubts  as  to  the 
common  assumption  that  the  effects  of  enthusiasm 
are  always  preponderantly  if  not  wholly  good. 
When  I  consider,  for  example,  the  history  of  re- 
ligion, I  find  no  warrant  for  affirming  that  its  serv- 
[63] 


A  MODERN  SYMPOSIUM 

ices  have  outweighed  its  disservices.  Jesus  Christ, 
the  greatest  and,  I  think,  the  sanest  of  enthusiasts, 
lit  the  fires  of  the  Inquisition  and  set  up  the  Pope 
at  Rome.  Mahomet  deluged  the  earth  with  blood, 
and  planted  the  Turk  on  the  Bosphorus.  Saint 
Francis  created  a  horde  of  sturdy  beggars.  Luther 
declared  the  Thirty  Years'  War.  Criticism  would 
have  arrested  the  course  of  these  men ;  but  would 
the  world  have  been  the  worse  ?  I  doubt  it.  There 
would  have  been  less  heat;  but  there  might  have 
been  more  light.  And,  for  my  part,  I  believe  in 
light.  It  may,  indeed,  be  true  that  intellect  without 
passion  is  barren;  but  it  is  certain  that  passion 
without  intellect  is  mischievous.  And  since  these 
powers,  which  should  be  united,  are,  in  fact,  at  war 
in  the  great  duel  which  runs  through  history,  I  take 
my  stand  with  the  intellect.  If  I  must  choose,  I 
would  rather  be  barren  than  mischievous.  But  it  is 
my  aim  to  be  fruitful,  and  to  be  fruitful  through 
criticism.  That  means,  I  fear,  that  I  am  bound  to 
make  myself  unpleasant  to  everybody.  But  I  do 
it,  not  of  malice  prepense,  but  as  in  duty  bound. 
You  will  say,  perhaps,  that  that  only  makes  the 
matter  worse.  Well,  so  be  it !  I  will  apologize  no 
[64] 


A  MODERN  SYMPOSIUM 

more,  but  proceed  at  once  to  my  disagreeable 
task. 

"Let  me  say  then  first,  that  in  listening  to 
the  speakers  who  have  preceded  me,  while  admir- 
ing the  beauty  and  ingenuity  of  the  superstructures 
they  have  raised,  I  have  been  busy,  according  to 
my  practice,  in  questioning  the  foundations.  And 
this  is  the  kind  of  result  I  have  arrived  at.  All  po- 
litical convictions  vary  between  the  two  extremes 
which  I  will  call  Collectivism  and  Anarchy.  Each 
of  these  pursues  at  all  costs  a  certain  end  — -^CoQgc- 
tivism,  order,  and  Anarchy,  liberty.  Each  is  held  as 
a  faith  and  propagated  as  a  religion.  And  between—1 
them  lie  those  various  compromises  between  faith 
and  experience,  idea  and  fact,  which  are  represent- 
ed by  liberalism,  conservatism,  and  the  like.  Now, 
the  degree  of  enthusiasm  which  accompanies  a 
belief,  is  commonly  in  direct  proportion  to  its  free- 
dom from  empirical  elements.  Simplicity  and  im- 
mediacy are  the  characteristics  of  all  passionate 
conviction.  But  a  critic  like  myself  cannot  believe 
that  in  politics,  or  anywhere  in  the  field  of  practical 
action,  any  such  simple  and  immediate  beliefs  are 
really  and  wholly  true.  Thus,  in  the  case  before 
[65] 


A  MODERN  SYMPOSIUM 

us,  I  would  point  out  that  neither  liberty  nor 
order  are  sufficient  ends  in  themselves,  though 
each,  I  think,  is  part  of  the  end.  The  liberty  that  is 
desirable  is  that  of  good  people  pursuing  Good  in 
order;  and  the  order  that  is  desirable  is  that  of 
good  people  pursuing  Good  in  liberty.  This  is  a 
correction  which,  perhaps,  both  collectivist  and 
anarchist  would  accept.  What  they  want,  they 
would  say,  is  that  kind  of  liberty  and  that  kind  of 
order  which  I  have  described.  But  as  liberty  and 
order,  so  conceived,  imply  one  another,  the  differ- 
ence between  the  two  positions  ceases  to  be  one  of 
ends  and  becomes  one  of  means.  But  every  prob- 
lem of  means  is  one  of  extreme  complexity  which 
can  only  be  solved,  in  the  most  tentative  way,  by 
observation  and  experiment.  And  opinions  based 
upon  such  a  process,  though  they  may  be  strongly 
held,  cannot  be  held  with  the  simplicity  and  force 
of  a  religious  or  ethical  intuition.  We  might,  con- 
ceivably, on  this  basis  adopt  the  position  either  of 
the  collectivist  or  of  the  anarchist ;  but  we  should  do 
so  not  as  enthusiasts,  but  as  critics,  with  a  full  con- 
sciousness that  we  are  resting  not  upon  an  abso- 
lute principle,  but  upon  a  balance  of  probabilities. 
[66] 


A  MODERN  SYMPOSIUM 

"  This,  then,  is  the  first  point  I  wished  to  make, 
that  the  whole  question  is  one  to  be  attacked  by 
criticism,  not  by  intuition.  But  now,  tested  by 
criticism,  both  the  extreme  positions  suggest  the 
gravest  possible  difficulties  and  doubts.  In  the  case 
of  anarchy,  especially,  these  force  themselves  upon 
the  most  superficial  view.  The  anarchist  maintains, 
in  effect,  that  to  bring  about  his  ideal  of  ordered  lib- 
erty all  youjbave  to  do  is  to  abolish  government. 
But  ^ejcan^point  to  no  experience  that  will  justify 
such  a  belief.  It  is  based  upon  a  theory  of  human 
nature  which  is  contradicted  by  all  the  facts 
known  to  us.  For  if  men,  were  it  not  for  govern- 
ment, might  be  living  in  the  garden  of  Eden,  how 
comes  it  that  they  ever  emerged  from  that  para- 
dise ?  No,  it  is  not  government  that  is  the  root  of 
our  troubles,  it  is  the  niggardliness  of  Nature  and 
the  greed  of  man.  And  both  these  are  primitive 
facts  which  would  be  strengthened,  not  destroy- 
ed, by  anarchy.  Can  it  be  believed  that  the  result 
would  be  satisfactory?  The  anarchist  may  in- 
deed reply  that  anything  would  be  better  than 
what  exists.  And  I  can  well  understand  how 
some  generous  and  sensitive  souls,  or  some  victims 
[67] 


A  MODERN  SYMPOSIUM 

of  intolerable  oppression,  may  be  driven  into  such 
counsels.  But  they  are  surely  counsels  of  despair! 
Or  is  it  possible  really  to  hold  —  as  MacCarthy 
apparently  does  —  that  on  the  eve  of  a  bloody  re- 
volution, whereby  all  owners  of  property  will  be 
summarily  deprived  of  all  they  have,  the  friendly 
arid  co-operative  instincts  of  human  nature  will 
immediately  come  into  play  without  friction;  that 
the  infinitely  complex  problems  of  production  and 
distribution  will  solve  themselves,  as  it  were,  of 
their  own  accord;  that  there  will  be  a  place  ready 
for  everybody  to  do  exactly  the  work  he  wants; 
that  everybody  will  want  to  work  at  something, 
and  will  be  contented  with  the  wage  assigned  him ; 
that  there  will  be  no  shortage,  no  lack  of  adaptation 
of  demand  to  supply;  and  all  this  achieved,  not  by 
virtue  of  any  new  knowledge  or  new  capacity,  but 
simply  by  a  rearrangement  of  existing  elements  ? 
Does  any  one,  does  MacCarthy  really,  in  a  calm 
moment,  believe  all  this  ?  And  is  he  prepared  to 
stake  society  upon  his  faith  ?  If  he  be,  he  is  indeed 
beyond  the  reach  of  my  watering-pot.  I  leave  him, 
therefore,  burning  luridly  and  unsubdued,  and 
pass  on  to  Allison. 

[68.1 


A  MODERN  SYMPOSIUM 

"Allison's  flame  is  gentler;  and  I  would  not  wish, 
even  if  I  could,  altogether  to  extinguish  it.  But  I 
am  anxious,  I  confess,  to  temper  it;  for  in  colour, 
to  my  taste,  it  is  a  little  ghastly;  and  I  fear  that  if  it 
increased  in  intensity,  it  might  even  become  too 
hot,  though  I  do  not  suggest  that  that  is  a  present 
danger.  To  drop  the  metaphor,  my  objections  to 
collectivism  are  not  as  fundamental  as  my  objec- 
tions to  anarchy,  nor  are  they  based  upon  any  lack 
of  appreciation  of  the  advantages  of  that  more 
equitable  distribution  of  the  opportunities  of  life 
which  I  take  to  be  at  the  bottom  of  the  collectivist 
ideal.  I  do  not  share  —  no  man  surely  who  has  re- 
flected could  share  —  the  common  prejudice  that 
there  is  something  fundamental,  natural,  and  in- 
evitable about  the  existing  organization  of  prop- 
erty. On  the  contrary,  it  is  clear  to  me  that  it  is  in- 
equitable; and  that  the  substitution  of  the  system 
advocated  by  collectivists  would  be  an  immense 
improvement,  if  it  could  be  successfully  carried  out, 
and  if  it  did  not  endanger  other  Goods,  which  may 
be  even  more  important  than  equality  of  oppor- 
tunity. Nor  do  I  hold  that  in  a  collectivist  state 
there  need  be  any  dangerous  relaxation  of  that  mo- 
[69] 


A  MODERN  SYMPOSIUM 

tive  of  self-interest  which  every  reasonable  man 
must  admit  to  be,  up  to  a  point,  the  most  potent 
source  of  all  practical  energy.  I  do  not  see  why  the 
state  should  not  pay  its  servants  according  to  merit 
just  as  private  companies  do,  and  make  the  re- 
wards of  ambition  depend  on  efficiency.  In  this 
purely  economic  region  there  is  not,  so  it  seems  to 
me,  anything  absurd  or  chimerical  in  the  socialist 
ideal.  My  difficulty  here  is  of  a  different  kind.  I  do 
not  see  how,  by  the  democratic  machinery  contem- 
plated, it  will  be  possible  to  secure  officials  suffi- 
ciently competent  and  disinterested  to  be  en- 
trusted with  functions  so  important  and  so  diffi- 
cult as  those  which  would  be  demanded  of  them 
under  the  socialist  regime.  In  a  democracy  the  gov- 
ernment can  hardly  rise  above  —  in  practice,  I 
think,  it  tends  to  fall  below  —  the  average  level  of 
honesty  and  intelligence.  In  the  United  States,  for 
example,  it  is  notorious  that  the  whole  machinery 
of  government,  and  especially  of  local  govern- 
ment, where  the  economic  functions  are  import- 
ant, is  exploited  by  the  more  unscrupulous  mem- 
bers of  the  community;  and  this  tendency  must  be 
immensely  accentuated  in  every  society  in  pro- 
[70} 


A  MODERN  SYMPOSIUM 

portion  as  the  functions  of  government  become 
important.  A  socialist  state  badly  administered 
would,  I  believe,  be  worse  than  the  state  under 
which  we  live,  to  the  same  degree  in  which,  when 
well  administered,  it  would  be  better.  And  I  do  not, 
I  confess,  see  what  guarantees  socialists  can  offer 
that  the  administration  will  be  good.  I  have  far  less 
confidence  than  Allison  in  mere  machinery;  and  I 
am  sure  that  no  machinery  will  produce  good  re- 
sults in  a  society  where  a  large  proportion  of  the 
citizens  have  no  other  idea  than  to  exploit  the  pow- 
ers of  government  in  their  own  interest.  But  such,  I 
believe,  is  the  case  in  existing  societies ;  and  I  do  not 
see  by  what  miracle  they  are  going  to  be  trans- 
formed. 

"  Such  is  my  first  difficulty  with  regard  to  collec- 
tivism. And  though  it  would  not  prevent  me  from 
supporting,  as  in  fact  I  do  support,  cautious  and 
tentative  experiments  in  the  direction  of  practical 
socialism,  it  does  prevent  me  from  looking  to  a 
collectivist  future  with  anything  like  the  breezy 
confidence  which  animates  Allison.  And  I  will  go 
further:  I  will  say  that  no  man  who  possesses  an 
adequate  intelligence,  and  does  not  deliberately 
[71] 


A  MODERN  SYMPOSIUM 

stifle  it,  has  a  right  to  any  such  confidence.  Setting 
aside,  however,  for  the  sake  of  argument,  this 
difficulty,  and  admitting  the  possibility  of  an  hon- 
est and  efficient  collectivist  state,  I  am  confronted 
with  a  further  and  even  graver  cause  of  hesitation. 
For  while  I  consider  that  the  distribution  of  the 
opportunities  of  life  is,  under  the  existing  system, 
in  the  highest  degree  capricious  and  inequitable, 
yet  I  would  prefer  such  inequity  to  the  most  equi- 
table arrangement  in  the  world  if  it  afforded  a 
better  guarantee  for  the  realization  of  certain 
higher  goods  than  would  be  afforded  by  the  im- 
proved system.  And  I  am  not  clear  in  my  own 
mind,  and  I  do  not  see  how  any  one  can  be  clear, 
that  collectivism  gives  as  good  a  security  as  the 
present  system  for  the  realization  of  these  higher 
goods.  And  this  brings  me  back  to  the  question  of 
liberty.  On  this  point  there  is,  I  am  well  aware,  a 
great  deal  of  cant  talked,  and  I  have  no  wish  to 
add  to  it.  Under  our  present  arrangements,  I  admit, 
for  the  great  mass  of  people,  there  is  no  liberty 
worth  the  name;  seeing  that  they  are  bound  and 
tied  all  their  lives  to  the  meanest  necessities.  And 
yet  we  see  that  out  of  the  midst  of  all  this  chaos  of 
[72] 


A  MODERN  SYMPOSIUM 

wrong,  there  have  emerged  and  do  emerge  artists, 
poets,  men  of  science,  saints.  And  the  appearance 
of  such  men  seems  to  me  to  depend  on  the  fact  that 
a  considerable  minority  have  the  power  to  choose, 
for  good  or  for  evil,  their  own  life,  to  follow  their 
bent,  even  in  the  face  of  tremendous  difficulties, 
and,  perhaps  because  of  those  difficulties  in  the 
more  fortunate  cases,  to  realize,  at  whatever  cost  of 
suffering,  great  works  and  great  lives.  But  under 
the  system  sketched  by  Allison  I  have  the  gravest 
doubts  whether  any  man  of  genius  would  ever 
emerge.  The  very  fact  that  everybody's  career  will 
be  regulated  for  him,  and  his  difficulties  smoothed 
away,  that,  in  a  word,  the  open  road  will  imply  the 
beaten  track,  will,  I  fear,  diminish,  if  not  destroy, 
the  enterprise,  the  innate  spirit  of  adventure,  in  the 
spiritual  as  in  the  physical  world,  on  which  de- 
pends all  that  we  call,  or  ought  to  call,  progress.  A 
collecti vist  state,  it  is  true,  might  establish  and  en- 
dow academies;  but  would  it  ever  produce  a 
Shakspere  or  a  Michelangelo  ?  It  might  engender 
and  foster  religious  orthodoxy ;  but  would  it  have 
a  place  for  the  reformer  or  the  saint?  Should 
we  not  have  to  pay  for  the  general  level  of  comfort 
[73] 


A  MODERN  SYMPOSIUM 

and  intelligence,  by  suppressing  the  only  thing 
good  in  itself,  the  manifestation  of  genius  ?  I  do 
not  say  dogmatically  that  it  would  be  so :  I  do  not 
even  say  dogmatically  that,  even  if  it  were,  the  ar- 
gument would  be  conclusive  against  the  collecti- 
vist  state.  But  the  issue  is  so  tremendous  that  it 
necessarily  makes  me  pause,  as  it  must,  I  contend, 
any  candid  man,  who  is  not  prejudiced  by  a  pre- 
conceived ideal. 

"Now,  it  is  not  for  the  sake  of  recommending  any 
opinion  of  my  own  that  I  have  dwelt  on  these  con- 
siderations. It  is,  rather,  to  illustrate  and  drive 
home  the  point  with  which  I  began,  that  the  intel- 
lect has  its  rights,  that  it  enters  into  every  creed, 
and  that  it  undermines,  in  every  creed,  all  ele- 
ments of  mere  irrational  or  antirational  faith ;  that 
this  fact  can  only  be  disguised  by  a  conscious  or 
unconscious  predetermination,  not  to  let  the  intel- 
lect have  its  say ;  and  that  such  predetermination 
is  a  very  serious  error  and  vice.  It  is  without 
shame  and  without  regret,  on  the  contrary  it  is  with 
satisfaction  and  self-approval,  that  I  find  in  my 
own  case,  my  intelligence  daily  more  and  more 
undermining  my  instinctive  beliefs.  If,  as  some 
[74] 


A  MODERN  SYMPOSIUM 

have  held,  it  were  necessary  to  choose  between 
reason  and  passion,  I  would  choose  reason.  But 
I  find  no  such  necessity;  for  reason  to  me  her- 
self is  a  passion.  Men  think  the  life  of  reason  cold. 
How  little  do  they  know  what  it  is  to  be  responsive 
to  every  call,  solicited  by  every  impulse,  yet  still, 
like  the  magnet,  vibrate  ever  to  the  north,  never  so 
tense,  never  so  aware  of  the  stress  and  strain  of 
force  as  when  most  irremovably  fixed  upon  that 
goal.  The  intensity  of  life  is  not  to  be  meas- 
ured by  the  degree  of  oscillation.  It  is  at  the  stillest 
point  that  the  most  tremendous  energies  meet;  and 
such  a  point  is  the  intelligence  open  to  infinity.  For 
such  stillness  I  feel  myself  to  be  destined,  if  ever  I 
could  attain  it.  But  others,  I  suppose,  like  Mac- 
Carthy,  have  a  different  fate.  In  the  celestial  world 
of  souls,  the  hierarchy  of  spirits,  there  is  need  of 
the  planet  no  less  than  of  its  sun.  The  station  and 
gravity  of  the  one  determines  the  orbit  of  the 
other,  and  the  antagonism  that  keeps  them  apart 
also  knits  them  together.  There  is  no  motion  of 
MacCarthy's  but  I  vibrate  to  it;  and  about  my 
immobility  he  revolves.  But  both  of  us,  as  I  am 
inclined  to  think,  are  included  in  a  larger  system 
[75] 


A  MODERN  SYMPOSIUM 

and  move  together  on  a  remoter  centre.  And  the 
very  law  of  our  contention,  as  perhaps  one  day  we 
may  come  to  see,  is  that  of  a  love  that  by  discord 
achieves  harmony." 

THE  conclusion  of  Martin's  speech  left  me 
somewhat  in  doubt  how  to  proceed.  All  of 
the  company  who  were  primarily  interest- 
ed in  politics  had  now  spoken;  and  I  was  afraid 
there  might  be  a  complete  break  inthe  subjectof  our 
discourse.  Casting  about,  I  could  think  of  nothing 
better  than  to  call  upon  Wilson,  the  biologist.  For 
though  he  was  a  speciah'st,  he  regarded  everything 
as  a  branch  of  his  specialty;  and  would,  I  knew,  be 
as  ready  to  discourse  on  society  as  on  anything  else. 
Although,  therefore,  I  disliked  a  certain  arrogance 
he  was  wont  to  display,  I  felt  that,  since  he  was  to 
speak,  this  was  the  proper  place  to  introduce  him.  I 
asked  him  accordingly  to  take  up  the  thread  of  the 
debate;  and  without  pause  his  aggressive  voice 
began  to  assail  our  ears. 

"  I  don't  quite  know,"  he  began,  "  why  a  mere 
man  of  science  should  be  invited  to  intervene  in  a 
debate  on  these  high  subjects.  Politics,  I  have  al- 
ways understood,  is  a  kind  of  mystery,  only  to  be 
[76] 


A  MODERN  SYMPOSIUM 

grasped  by  a  favoured  few,  and  then  not  by  any 
processes  of  thought,  but  by  some  kind  of  intui- 
tion. But  of  late  years  something  seems  to  have 
happened.  The  intuition  theory  was  all  very  well 
when  the  intuitions  did  not  conflict,  or  when,  at 
least,  those  who  were  possessed  by  one,  never 
came  into  real  intellectual  contact  with  those  who 
were  possessed  by  another.  But  here,  to-night,  have 
we  met  together  upon  this  terrace,  been  confront- 
ed with  the  most  opposite  principles  jostling  in 
the  roughest  way,  and,  as  it  seems  to  the  outsider, 
simply  annihilating  one  another.  Whence  Martin's 
plea  for  criticism;  a  plea  with  which  I  most  heartily 
sympathize,  only  that  he  gave  no  indication  of  the 
basis  on  which  criticism  itself  is  to  rest.  And  per- 
haps that  is  where  and  why  I  come  in.  I  have  been 
watching  to-night  with  curiosity,  and  I  must  con- 
fess with  a  little  amusement,  one  building  after 
another  laboriously  raised  by  each  speaker  in  turn, 
only  to  collapse  ignominiously  at  the  first  touch  ad- 
ministered by  his  successor.  And  why?  For  the 
ancient  reason,  that  the  structures  were  built  upon 
the  sand.  Well,  I  have  raised  no  building  myself  to 
speak  of.  But  I  am  one  of  an  obscure  group  of  peo- 
[77] 


A  MODERN  SYMPOSIUM 

pie  who  are  working  at  solid  foundations ;  which  is 
only  another  way  of  saying  that  I  am  a  man  of  sci- 
ence. Only  a  biologist,  it  is  true;  heaven  forfend 
that  I  should  call  myself  a  sociologist !  But  biology 
is  one  of  the  disciplines  that  are  building  up  that 
general  view  of  Nature  and  the  world  which  is  grad- 
ually revolutionizing  all  our  social  conceptions. 
The  politicians,  I  am  afraid,  are  hardly  aware  of 
this.  And  that  is  why  —  if  I  may  say  so  without 
offence  —  their  utterances  are  coming  to  seem 
more  and  more  a  kind  of  irrelevant  prattle.  The 
forces  that  really  move  the  world  have  passed  out  of 
their  control.  And  it  is  only  where  the  forces  are  at 
work  that  the  living  ideas  move  upon  the  waters. 
Politicians  don't  study  science;  that  is  the  extra- 
ordinary fact.  And  yet  every  day  it  becomes  clearer 
that  politics  is  either  an  applied  science  or  a  char- 
latanism. Only,  unfortunately,  as  the  most  impor- 
tant things  are  precisely  the  last  to  be  known 
about,  and  it  is  exactly  where  it  is  most  imperative 
to  act  that  our  ignorance  is  most  complete,  the  sci- 
ence of  politics  has  hardly  yet  even  begun  to  be 
studied.  Hence  our  forlorn  paralysis  of  doubt 
whenever  we  pause  to  reflect ;  and  hence  the  kind  of 
[78] 


A  MODERN  SYMPOSIUM 

blind  desperation  with  which  earnest  people  are  im- 
pelled to  rush  incontinently  into  practice.  The  po- 
sition of  MacCarthy  is  very  intelligible,  however 
much  it  be,  to  my  mind, —  what  shall  I  say  ?  —  re- 
grettable. There  is,  in  fact,  hardly  a  question  that 
has  been  raised  to-night  that  is  at  present  capable 
of  scientific  determination.  And  with  that  word  I 
ought  perhaps,  in  my  capacity  of  man  of  science,  to 
sit  down. 

"And  so  I  would,  if  it  were  not  that  there  is 
something  else,  besides  positive  conclusions,  that 
results  from  a  long  devotion  to  science.  There  is  a 
certain  attitude  towards  life,  a  certain  sense  of 
what  is  important  and  what  is  not,  a  view  of  what 
one  may  call  the  commonplaces  of  existence,  that 
distinguishes,  I  think,  all  competent  people  who 
have  been  trained  in  that  discipline.  For  we  do 
think  about  politics,  or  rather  about  society,  even 
we  specialists.  And  between  us  we  are  gradually 
developing  a  sort  of  body  of  first  principles  which 
will  be  at  the  basis  of  any  future  sociology.  It  is 
these  that  I  feel  tempted  to  try  to  indicate.  And  the 
more  so,  because  they  are  so  foreign  to  much  that 
has  been  spoken  here  to-night.  I  have  had  a  kind  of 
[79] 


A  MODERN  SYMPOSIUM 

feeling,  to  tell  the  truth,  throughout  this  whole  dis 
cussion,  of  dwelling  among  the  tombs  and  listen- 
ing to  the  voices  of  the  dead.  And  I  feel  a  kind  of 
need  to  speak  for  the  li ving,  for  the  new  generation 
with  which  I  believe  I  am  in  touch.  I  want  to  say 
how  the  problems  you  have  raised  look  to  us,  who 
live  in  the  dry  light  of  physical  science. 

"  Let  me  say,  then,  to  begin  with,  that  for  us  the 
nineteenth  century  marks  a  breach  with  the  whole 
past  of  the  world  to  which  there  is  nothing  com- 
parable in  human  annals.  We  have  developed 
wholly  new  powers;  and,  coincidentally  and  corre- 
spondingly, a  wholly  new  attitude  to  life.  Of  the 
powers  I  do  not  intend  to  speak;  the  wonders  of 
steam  and  electricity  are  the  hackneyed  theme  of 
every  halfpenny  paper.  But  the  attitude  to  life, 
which  is  even  more  important,  is  something  that 
has  hardly  yet  been  formulated.  And  I  shall  en- 
deavour to  give  some  first  rough  expression  to  it. 

"  The  first  constituent,  then,  of  the  new  view  is 
that  of  continuity.  We  of  the  new  generation  realize 
that  the  present  is  a  mere  transition  from  the  past 
into  the  future;  that  no  event  and  no  moment  is  iso- 
lated; that  all  things,  successive  as  well  as  coinci- 
[80] 


A  MODERN  SYMPOSIUM 

dent,  are  bound  in  a  single  system.  Of  this  system 
the  general  formula  is  causation.  But,  in  human 
society,  the  specifically  important  case  of  it  is  the 
nexus  of  successive  generations.  We  do  not  now, 
we  who  reflect,  regard  man  as  an  individual,  nor 
even  as  one  of  a  body  of  contemporaries ;  we  regard 
him  as  primarily  a  son  and  a  father.  In  other  words, 
what  we  have  in  mind  is  Always  the  race;  whereas 
hitherto  the  central  point  has  been  the  individual 
or  the  citizen.  But  this  shifting  in  the  point  of  view 
implies  a  revolution  in  ethics  and  politics.  With  the 
ancients,  the  maintenance  of  the  existing  generation 
was  the  main  consideration,  and  patriotism  its  for- 
mula. To  Marcus  Aurelius,  to  the  Stoics,  as  later  to 
the  Christians,  the  subject  of  all  moral  duties  was 
the  individual  soul,  and  personal  salvation  became 
for  centuries  the  corner-stone  of  the  ethical  struc- 
ture. Well,  all  the  speculation,  all  the  doctrine,  all 
the  literature  based  upon  that  conception  has  be- 
come irrelevant  and  meaningless  in  the  light  of  the 
new  ideal.  We  no  longer  conceive  the  individual 
save  as  one  in  a  chain  of  births.  Fatherless,  he  is  in- 
conceivable; sonless,  he  is  abortive.  His  soul,  if  he 
have  one,  is  inseparable  from  its  derivation  from 
[81] 


A  MODERN  SYMPOSIUM 

the  past  and  its  tradition  to  the  future.  His  duty, 
his  happiness,  his  value,  are  all  bound  up  with  the 
fact  of  paternity ;  and  the  same,  mutatis  mutandis, 
is  true  of  women.  The  new  generation  in  a  word 
has  a  totally  new  code  of  ethics;  and  that  code  is 
directed  to  the  end  of  the  perfection  of  the  race. 
For,  and  this  is  the  second  constituent  of  the  mod- 
ern view,  the  series  of  births  is  also  the  vehicle  of 
progress.  It  is  this  discovery  that  gives  to  our  out- 
look on  life  its  exhilaration  and  zest.  The  ancients 
conceived  the  Golden  Age  as  lying  in  the  past;  the 
men  of  the  Middle  Ages  removed  it  to  an  imagi- 
nary heaven.  Both  in  effect  despaired  of  this  world; 
and  consequently  their  characteristic  philosophy  is 
that  of  the  tub  or  the  hermitage.  So  soon  as  the  first 
flush  of  youth  was  past,  pessimism  clouded  the  civ- 
ilization of  Greece  and  of  Rome;  and  from  this 
Christianity  escaped  only  to  take  refuge  in  an  im- 
aginary bliss  beyond  the  grave.  But  we,  by  means 
of  science,  have  established  progress.  We  look  to  a 
future,  a  future  assured,  and  a  future  in  this  world. 
Our  eyes  are  on  the  coming  generations ;  in  them 
centres  our  hope  and  our  duty.  To  feed  them,  to 
clothe  them,  to  educate  them,  to  make  them  better 
[82] 


A  MODERN  SYMPOSIUM 

than  ourselves,  to  do  for  them  all  that  has  hitherto 
been  so  scandalously  neglected,  and  in  doing  it  to 
find  our  own  life  and  our  own  satisfaction  —  that 
is  our  task  and  our  privilege,  ours  of  the  new  gen- 
eration. 

"  And  this  brings  me  to  the  third  point  in  our 
scheme  of  life.  We  believe  in  progress;  but  we  do 
not  believe  that  progress  is  fated.  And  here,  too, 
our  outlook  is  essentially  new.  Hitherto,  the  con- 
ceptions of  Fate  and  Providence  have  divided  the 
empire  of  the  world.  We  of  the  new  generation  ac- 
cept neither.  We  believe  neither  in  a  good  God 
directing  the  course  of  events;  nor  in  a  blind  power 
that  controls  them  independently  and  in  despite  of 
human  will.  We  know  that  what  we  do  or  fail  to  do 
matters.  We  know  that  we  have  will;  that  will  may 
be  directed  by  reason;  and  that  the  end  to  which 
reason  points  is  the  progress  of  the  race.  This  much 
we  hold  to  be  established ;  more  than  this  we  do  not 
need.  And  it  is  the  acceptance  of  just  this  that  cuts 
us  off  from  the  past,  that  makes  its  literature,  its 
ethics,  its  politics,  meaningless  and  unintelligible 
to  us,  that  makes  us,  in  a  word,  what  we  are,  the 
first  of  the  new  generation. 
[83] 


A  MODERN  SYMPOSIUM 

"  Well,  now,  assuming  this  standpoint  let  us  go 
on  to  see  how  some  of  the  questions  look  which  have 
been  touched  upon  to-night.  Those  questions  have 
been  connected  mainly  with  government  and  prop- 
erty. And  upon  these  two  factors,  it  would  seem,  in 
the  opinion  of  previous  speakers,  all  the  interests  of 
society  turn.  But  from  the  point  where  we  now 
stand  we  see  clearly  that  there  is  a  third  factor  to 
which  these  are  altogether  subordinate  —  I  mean 
the  family.  For  the  family  is  the  immediate  agent 
in  the  production  and  rearing  of  children ;  and  this, 
as  we  have  seen,  is  the  end  of  society.  With  the 
family  therefore  social  reconstruction  should  start. 
And  we  may  lay  down  as  the  fundamental  ethical 
and  social  axiom  that  everybody  not  physically  dis- 
qualified ought  to  marry,  and  to  produce  at  least 
four  children.  The  only  question  here  is  whether 
the  state  should  intervene  and  endeavour  so  to  reg- 
ulate marriages  as  to  bring  together  those  whose 
union  is  most  likely  to  result  in  good  offspring. 
This  is  a  point  on  which  the  ancients,  I  am  aware, 
in  their  light-hearted  sciolism  laid  great  stress. 
Only,  characteristically  enough,  they  ignored  the 
fundamental  difficulty,  that  nothing  is  known  — 
184] 


A  MOUKKM    SYMPOSIUM 

nothing  even  now,  and  how  much  less  then !  —  of 
the  conditions  necessary  to  produce  the  desired  re- 
sult. If  ever  the  conditions  should  come  to  be  un- 
derstood —  and  the  problem  is  pre-eminently  one 
for  science ;  and  if  ever  what  is  even  more  difficult 
—  we  should  come  to  know  clearly  and  exactly  for 
what  points  we  ought  to  breed;  then,  no  doubt,  it 
may  be  desirable  for  government  to  undertake  the 
complete  regulation  of  marriage.  Meantime,  we 
must  confine  our  efforts  to  the  simpler  and  more 
manageable  task  of  securing  for  the  children  when 
they  are  born  the  best  possible  environment,  phys- 
ical, intellectual  and  moral.  But  this  may  be 
done,  even  without  a  radical  reconstruction  of 
the  law  of  property,  simply  by  proceeding  further 
on  the  lines  on  which  we  are  already  embarked, 
by  insisting  on  a  certain  standard,  and  that  a 
high  one,  of  house-room,  sanitation,  food,  and 
the  like.  We  could  thus  ensure  from  the  begin- 
ning for  every  child  at  least  a  sound  physical  de- 
velopment; and  that  without  undermining  the  re- 
sponsibility of  parents.  What  else  the  state  can  do, 
it  must  do  by  education ;  a  thing  which,  at  present, 
I  do  not  hesitate  to  say,  does  not  exist  among  us. 
[85] 


A  MODERN  SYMPOSIUM 

We  have  an  elementary  system  of  cram  and  drill 
directed  by  the  soulless  automata  it  has  itself  pro- 
duced; a  secondary  system  of  athletics  and  dead 
languages  presided  over  by  gentlemanly  amateurs ; 
and  a  university  system  which  —  well,  of  which  I 
cannot  trust  myself  to  speak.  I  wish  only  to  indi- 
cate that,  in  the  eyes  of  the  new  generation,  breed- 
ing and  education  are  the  two  cardinal  pillars  of 
society.  All  other  questions,  even  those  of  property 
and  government,  are  subordinate;  and  only  as  sub- 
ordinate can  they  be  fruitfully  approached.  Take, 
for  example,  property.  On  this  point  we  have  no 
prejudices,  either  socialistic  or  anti-socialistic. 
Property,  as  we  view  it,  is  simply  a  tool  for  produc- 
ing and  perfecting  men.  Whether  it  will  serve  that 
purpose  best  if  controlled  by  individuals  or  by  the 
state,  or  partly  by  the  one  and  partly  by  the  other, 
we  regard  as  an  open  question,  to  be  settled  by  ex- 
periment. We  see  no  principle  one  way  or  the  other. 
Property  is  not  a  right,  nor  a  duty,  nor  a  privilege, 
either  of  individuals  or  of  the  community.  It  is  sim- 
ply and  solely,  like  everything  else,  a  function  of 
the  chain  of  births.  Whoever  owns  it,  however  it  is 
administered,  it  has  only  one  object,  to  ensure  for 
[86] 


A  MODERN  SYMPOSIUM 

every  child  that  is  born  a  sufficiency  of  physical 
goods,  and  for  the  better-endowed  all  that  they  re- 
quire in  the  way  of  training  to  enable  them  to  per- 
form efficiently  the  higher  duties  of  society. 

'*  And  as  property  is  merely  a  means,  so  is  gov- 
ernment. To  us  of  the  new  generation  nothing  is 
more  surprising  and  more  repugnant,  than  the  im- 
portance attached  by  politicians  to  formulae  which 
have  long  since  lost  whatever  significance  they  may 
once  have  possessed.  Democracy,  representation, 
trust  in  the  people  and  the  rest,  all  this  to  us  is 
the  idlest  verbiage.  It  is  notorious,  even  to  those 
who  make  most  play  with  these  phrases,  that  the 
people  do  not  govern  themselves,  that  they  cannot 
do  so,  and  that  they  would  make  a  great  mess  of  it 
if  they  could.  The  truth  is,  that  we  are  living  polit- 
ically on  a  tradition  which  arose  when  by  govern- 
ment was  meant  government  by  a  class,  when  one 
man  or  a  few  exploited  the  rest  in  the  name  of  the 
state,  and  when  therefore  it  was  of  imperative  im- 
portance to  bring  to  bear  upon  those  who  were  in 
power  the  brute  and  unintelligent  weight  of  the 
mass.  The  whole  democratic  movement,  though  it 
assumed  a  positive  intellectual  form,  was  in  fact 
[87] 


A  MODERN  SYMPOSIUM 

negative  in  its  aim  and  scope.  It  meant  simply,  we 
will  not  be  exploited.  But  that  end  has  now  been 
attained.  There  is  no  fear  now  that  government 
will  be  oppressive;  and  the  only  problem  of  the 
future  is,  how  to  make  it  efficient.  But  efficiency,  it 
is  certain,  can  never  be  secured  by  democratic 
machinery.  We  must,  as  Allison  rightly  maintains, 
have  trained  and  skilled  persons.  How  these  are  to 
be  secured  is  a  matter  of  detail,  though  no  doubt  of 
important  detail ;  and  it  is  one  that  the  new  genera- 
tion will  have  to  solve.  What  they  will  want,  in  any 
case,  is  government.  MacCarthy's  idea  of  anarchy 
is — well,  if  he  will  pardon  my  saying  so,  it  is  hard- 
ly worthy  of  his  intelligence.  You  cannot  regulate 
society,  any  more  than  you  can  spin  cotton,  by  the 
light  of  nature  and  a  good  heart.  MacCarthy  mis- 
takes the  character  of  government  altogether,  when 
he  imagines  its  essence  to  be  compulsion.  Its  essence 
is  direction;  and  direction,  whatever  the  form 
of  society,  is,  or  should  be,  reserved  for  the  wise. 
It  is  for  wise  direction  that  the  coming  generations 
cry;  and  it  is  our  business  to  see  that  they  get  it. 
"  I  have  thus  indicated  briefly  the  view  of  social 
and  political  questions  which  I  believe  will  be  that 
[88] 


A  MODERN  SYMPOSIUM 

of  the  future.  And  my  reason  for  thinking  so  is, 
that  that  view  is  based  upon  science.  It  is  this  that 
distinguishes  the  new  generation  from  all  others. 
Hitherto  the  affairs  of  the  world  have  been  con- 
ducted by  passion,  interest,  sentiment,  religion, 
anything  but  reasoned  knowledge.  The  end  of  that 
regime,  which  has  dominated  all  history,  is  at 
hand.  The  old  influences,  it  is  true,  still  survive,  and 
even  appear  to  be  supreme.  We  have  had  ample 
evidence  to-night  of  their  apparent  vitality.  But 
underneath  them  is  growing  up  the  sturdy  plant  of 
science.  Already  it  has  dislodged  their  roots;  and 
though  they  still  seem  to  bear  flower,  the  flower  is 
withering  before  our  eyes.  In  its  place,  before  long, 
will  appear  the  new  and  splendid  blossom  whose 
appearance  ends  and  begins  an  epoch  of  evolution. 
That  is  a  consummation  nothing  can  delay.  We 
need  not  fret  or  hurry.  We  have  only  to  work  on 
silently  at  the  foundations.  The  city,  it  is  true, 
seems  to  be  rising  apart  from  our  labours.  There, 
in  the  distance,  are  the  stately  buildings,  there  is 
the  noise  of  the  masons,  the  carpenters,  the  engi- 
neers. But  see!  the  whole  structure  shakes  and 
trembles  as  it  grows.  Houses  fall  as  fast  as  they  are 
[89] 


A  MODERN  SYMPOSIUM 

erected ;  foundations  sink,  towers  settle,  domes  and 
pinnacles  collapse.  All  history  is  the  building  of  a 
dream-city,  fantastic  as  that  ancient  one  of  the 
birds,  changeful  as  the  sunset  clouds.  And  no  won- 
der; for  it  is  building  on  the  sand.  There  is  only  one 
foundation  of  rock,  and  that  is  being  laid  by  sci- 
ence. Only  wait!  To  us  will  come  sooner  or  later, 
the  people  and  the  architects.  To  us  they  will  sub- 
mit the  great  plans  they  have  striven  so  vainly  to 
realize.  We  shall  pronounce  on  their  possibility, 
their  suitability,  even  their  beauty.  Caesar  and  Na- 
poleon will  give  place  to  Comte  and  Herbert  Spen- 
cer; and  Newton  and  Darwin  sit  in  judgment  on 
Plato  and  Aquinas." 

WITH  that  he  concluded.  And  as  he 
sat  down  a  note  was  passed  along 
to  me  from  Ellis,  asking  permision 
to  speak  next.  I  assented  willingly;  for  Ellis,  though 
some  of  us  thought  him  frivolous,  was,  at  any  rate, 
never  dull.  His  sunburnt  complexion,  his  fair  curly 
hair,  and  the  light  in  his  blue  eyes  made  a  pleas- 
ant impression,  as  he  rose  and  looked  down  upon 
us  from  his  six  feet. 

"This,"  he  began,  "  is  really  an  extraordinary 
[90] 


A  MODERN  SYMPOSIUM 

discovery  Wilson  has  made,  that  fathers  have 
children,  and  children  fathers!  One  wonders  how 
the  world  has  got  on  all  these  centuries  in  ignorance 
of  it.  It  seems  so  obvious,  once  it  has  been  stated. 
But  that,  of  course,  is  the  nature  of  great  truths;  as 
soon  as  they  are  announced  they  seem  to  have  been 
always  f amiliar.  It  is  possible,  for  that  very  reason, 
that  many  people  may  underestimate  the  import- 
ance of  Wilson's  pronouncement,  forgetting  that  it 
is  the  privilege  of  genius  to  formulate  for  the  first 
time  what  every  one  has  been  dimly  feeling.  We 
ought  not  to  be  ungrateful;  but  perhaps  it  is  our 
duty  to  be  cautious.  For  great  ideas  naturally  sug- 
gest practical  applications,  and  it  is  here  that  I 
foresee  difficulties.  What  Wilson's  proposition  in 
fact  amounts  to,  if  I  understand  him  rightly,  is 
that  we  ought  to  open  as  wide  as  possible  the  gates 
of  life,  and  make  those  who  enter  as  comfortable 
as  we  can.  Now,  I  think  we  ought  to  be  very  care- 
ful about  doing  anything  of  the  kind.  We  know,  of 
course,  very  little  about  the  conditions  of  the  un- 
born. But  I  think  it  highly  probable  that,  like 
labour,  as  described  by  the  political  economists, 
they  form  throughout  the  universe  a  single  mobile 
[91] 


A  MODERN  SYMPOSIUM 

body,  with  a  tendency  to  gravitate  wherever  the 
access  is  freest  and  the  conditions  most  favourable. 
And  I  should  be  very  much  afraid  of  attracting 
what  we  may  call,  perhaps,  the  unemployed  of  the 
universe  in  undue  proportions  to  this  planet,  by 
offering  them  artificially  better  terms  than  are  to 
be  obtained  elsewhere.  For  that,  as  you  know, 
would  defeat  our  own  object.  We  should  merely 
cause  an  exodus,  as  it  were,  from  the  outlying  and 
rural  districts,  Mars,  or  the  moon,  or  whatever  the 
place  may  be;  and  the  amount  of  distress  and 
difficulty  on  the  earth  would  be  greater  than  ever. 
At  any  rate,  I  should  insist,  and  I  daresay  Wilson 
agrees  with  me  there,  on  some  adequate  test.  And 
I  would  not  advertise  too  widely  what  we  are  doing. 
After  all,  other  planets  must  be  responsible  foi 
their  own  unborn ;  and  I  don't  see  why  we  should 
become  a  kind  of  dumping-ground  of  the  universe 
for  every  one  who  may  imagine  he  can  better  him- 
self by  migrating  to  the  earth.  For  that  reason 
among  others,  I  would  not  open  the  gate  too  wide 
And,  perhaps,  in  view  of  this  consideration,  we 
might  still  permit  some  people  not  to  marry.  At  any 
rate,  I  would  n't  go  further,  I  think,  than  a  fine  for 
[92] 


A  MODERN  SYMPOSIUM 

recalcitrant  bachelors.  Wilson,  I  daresay,  would 
prefer  imprisonment  for  a  second  offence,  and  in 
case  of  contumacy,  even  capital  punishment.  On 
such  a  point  I  am  not,  I  confess,  an  altogether  im- 
partial judge,  as  I  should  certainly  incur  the 
greater  penalty.  Still,  as  I  have  said,  in  the  general 
interests  of  society,  and  in  view  of  the  conditions  of 
the  universal  market,  I  would  urge  caution  and  de- 
liberation. And  that  is  all  I  have  to  say  at  present 
on  this  very  interesting  subject. 

"  The  other  point  that  interested  me  in  Wilson's 
remarks  was  not,  indeed,  so  novel  as  the  discovery 
about  fathers  having  children,  but  it  was,  in  its 
way,  equally  important.  I  mean,  the  announce- 
ment made  with  authority  that  the  human  race 
really  does,  as  has  been  so  often  conjectured, 
progress.  We  may  take  it  now,  I  suppose,  that 
that  is  established,  or  Wilson  would  not  have  pro- 
claimed it.  And  we  are,  therefore,  in  a  position 
roughly  to  determine  in  what  progress  consists. 
This  is  a  task  which,  I  believe,  I  am  more  com- 
petent to  attempt  perhaps  even  than  Wilson  him- 
self, because  I  have  had  unusual  opportunities  of 
travel,  and  have  endeavoured  to  utilize  them  to 
[93] 


A  MODERN  SYMPOSIUM 

clear  my  mind  of  prejudices.  I  flatter  myself  that  I 
can  regard  with  perfect  impartiality  the  ideals  of 
different  countries,  and  in  particular  those  of  the 
new  world  which,  I  presume,  are  to  dominate  the 
future.  In  attempting  to  estimate  what  progress 
means,  one  could  not  do  better,  I  suppose,  than 
describe  the  civilization  of  the  United  States.  For 
in  describing  that,  one  will  be  describing  the  whole 
civilization  of  the  future,  seeing  that  what  America 
is  our  colonies  are,  or  will  become,  and  what  our 
colonies  are  we,  too,  may  hope  to  attain,  if  we 
make  the  proper  sacrifices  to  preserve  the  unity  of 
the  empire.  Let  us  see,  then,  what,  from  an  ob- 
jective point  of  view,  really  is  the  future  of  this 
progressing  world  of  ours. 

"  Perhaps,  however,  before  proceeding  to  analyse 
the  spiritual  ideals  of  the  American  people,  I  had 
better  give  some  account  of  their  country.  For  en- 
vironment, as  we  all  know  now,  has  an  incalcula- 
ble effect  upon  character.  Consider,  then,  the  Am- 
erican continent!  How  simple  it  is!  How  broad! 
How  large!  How  grand  in  design!  A  strip  of  coast, 
a  range  of  mountains,  a  plain,  a  second  range,  a 
second  strip  of  coast!  That  is  all!  Contrast  the 
[94] 


A  MODERN  SYMPOSIUM 

complexity  of  Europe,  its  lack  of  symmetry,  its 
variety,  irregularity,  disorder  and  caprice!  The 
geography  of  the  two  continents  already  fore- 
shadows the  differences  in  their  civilizations.  On 
the  one  hand  simplicity  and  size;  on  the  other  a 
hole-and-corner  variety:  there  immense  rivers, 
endless  forests,  interminable  plains,  indefinite 
repetition  of  a  few  broad  ideas;  here  distracting 
transitions,  novelties,  surprises,  shocks,  distinc- 
tions in  a  word,  already  suggesting  Distinction. 
Even  in  its  physical  features  America  is  the  land  of 
quantity,  while  Europe  is  that  of  quality.  And 
as  with  the  land,  so  with  its  products.  How 
large  are  the  American  fruits!  How  tall  the  trees! 
How  immense  the  oysters!  What  has  Europe 
by  comparison?  Mere  flavour  and  form,  mere 
beauty,  delicacy  and  grace!  America,  one  would 
say,  is  the  latest  work  of  the  great  artist  —  we  are 
told,  indeed,  by  geologists,  that  it  is  the  youngest  of 
the  continents  —  conceived  at  an  age  when  he  had 
begun  to  repeat  himself,  broad,  summary,  im. 
pressionist,  audacious  in  empty  space;  whereas 
Europe  would  seem  to  represent  his  pre-Raphaelite 
period,  in  its  wealth  of  detail,  its  variety  of  figure, 
[95] 


A  MODERN  SYMPOSIUM 

costume,  architecture,  landscape,  its  crudely  con- 
trasted colours  and  minute  precision  of  individual 
form. 

"And  as  with  the  countries,  so  with  their  civ- 
ilizations. Europe  is  the  home  of  class,  America  of 
democracy.  By  democracy  I  do  not  mean  a  mere 
form  of  government  —  in  that  respect,  of  course, 
America  is  less  democratic  than  England:  I  mean 
the  mental  attitude  that  implies  and  engenders  In- 
distinction.  In  distinction,  I  say,  rather  than  equal- 
ity, for  the  word  equality  is  misleading,  and  might 
seem  to  imply,  for  example,  a  social  and  economic 
parity  of  conditions,  which  no  more  exists  in  Am- 
erica than  it  does  in  Europe.  Politically,  as  well 
as  socially,  America  is  a  plutocracy;  her  democracy 
is  spiritual  and  intellectual;  and  its  essence  is,  the 
denial  of  all  superiorities  save  that  of  wealth.  Such 
superiorities,  in  fact,  hardly  exist  across  the  Atlan- 
tic. All  men  there  are  intelligent,  all  efficient,  all 
energetic;  and  as  these  are  the  only  qualities  they 
possess,  so  they  are  the  only  ones  they  feel  called 
upon  to  admire.  How  different  is  the  case  with 
Europe !  How  innumerable  and  how  confusing  the 
gradations!  For  diversities  of  language  and  race, 
[96] 


A  MODERN  SYMPOSIUM 

indeed,  we  may  not  be  altogether  responsible; 
but  we  have  superadded  to  these,  distinctions  of 
manner,  of  feeling,  of  perception,  of  intellectual 
grasp  and  spiritual  insight,  unknown  to  the  sim- 
pler and  vaster  consciousness  of  the  West.  In  addi- 
tion, in  short,  to  the  obvious  and  fundamentally 
natural  standard  of  wealth,  we  have  invented 
others  impalpable  and  artificial  in  their  character; 
and  however  rapidly  these  may  be  destined  to  dis- 
appear as  the  race  progresses,  and  the  influence  of 
the  West  begins  to  dominate  the  East,  they  do, 
nevertheless,  still  persist,  and  give  to  our  effete 
civilization  the  character  of  Aristocracy,  that  is  of 
Caste.  In  all  this  we  see,  as  I  have  suggested,  the 
influence  of  environment.  The  old-world  stock, 
transplanted  across  the  ocean,  imitates  the  char- 
acteristics of  its  new  home.  Sloughing  off  arti- 
ficial distinctions,  it  manifests  itself  in  bold  sim- 
plicity, broad  as  the  plains,  turbulent  as  the  rivers, 
formless  as  the  mountains,  crude  as  the  fruits  of  its 
adopted  country. 

Yet  while  thus  forming  themselves  into  the  im- 
age of  the  new  world,  the  Americans  have  not 
disdained  to  make  use  of  such  acquisitions  of 
[97] 


A  MODERN  SYMPOSIUM 

the  Past  as  might  be  useful  to  them  in  the  task 
that  lay  before  them.  They  have  rejected  our 
ideals  and  our  standards;  but  they  have  borrow- 
ed our  capital  and  our  inventions.  They  have 
thus  been  able  -  -  a  thing  unknown  before  in  the 
history  of  the  world  —  to  start  the  battle  against 
Nature  with  weapons  ready  forged.  On  the  ma- 
terial results  they  have  thus  been  able  to  achieve 
it  is  the  less  necessary  for  me  to  dilate,  that  they 
keep  us  so  fully  informed  of  them  themselves.  But 
it  may  be  interesting  to  note  an  important  conse- 
quence in  their  spiritual  life,  which  has  commonly 
escaped  the  notice  of  observers.  Thanks  to  Eu- 
rope, America  has  never  been  powerless  in  the  face 
of  Nature;  therefore  has  never  felt  Fear;  therefore 
never  known  Reverence;  and  therefore  never  ex- 
perienced Religion.  It  may  seem  paradoxical  to 
make  such  an  assertion  about  the  descendants  of 
the  Puritan  Fathers;  nor  do  I  forget  the  notorious 
fact  that  America  is  the  home  of  the  sects,  from  the 
followers  of  Joseph  Smith  to  those  of  Mrs.  Eddy. 
But  these  are  the  phenomena  that  illustrate  my 
point.  A  nation  which  knew  what  religion  was,  in 
the  European  sense;  whose  roots  were  struck  in  the 
[98] 


A  MODERN  SYMPOSIUM 

soil  of  spiritual  conflict,  of  temptations  and  vis- 
ions in  haunted  forests  or  desert  sands  by  the  Nile, 
of  midnight  risings,  scourgings  of  the  flesh,  dirges  in 
vast  cathedrals,  and  the  miracle  of  the  Host  sol- 
emnly veiled  in  a  glory  of  painted  light  —  such  a 
nation  would  never  have  accepted  Christian 
Science  as  a  religion.  No !  Religion  in  America  is  a 
parasite  without  roots.  The  questions  that  have  oc- 
cupied Europe  from  the  dawn  of  her  history,  for 
which  she  has  fought  more  fiercely  than  for  em- 
pire or  liberty,  for  which  she  has  fasted  in  deserts, 
agonized  in  cells,  suffered  on  the  cross,  and  at  the 
stake,  for  which  she  has  sacrificed  wealth,  health, 
ease,  intelligence,  lif  e,  these  questions  of  the  meaning 
of  the  world,  the  origin  and  destiny  of  the  soul,  the 
life  after  death,  the  existence  of  God,  and  his  rela- 
tion to  the  universe,  for  the  American  people  simply 
do  not  exist.  They  are  as  inaccessible,  as  impossible 
to  them,  as  the  Sphere  to  the  dwellers  in  Flatland. 
That  whole  dimension  is  unknown  to  them.  Their 
healthy  and  robust  intelligence  confines  itself  to  the 
things  of  this  world.  Their  religion,  if  they  have 
one,  is  what  I  believe  they  call  '  healthy-mind- 
edness'.  It  consists  in  ignoring  everything  that 
[99] 


A  MODERN  SYMPOSIUM 

might  suggest  a  doubt  as  to  the  worth  of  exist- 
ence, and  so  conceivably  paralyse  activity.  'Let 
us  eat  and  drink, '  they  say,  with  a  hearty  and 
robust  good  faith;  omitting  as  irrelevant  and 
morbid  the  discouraging  appendix,  'for  to-mor- 
row we  die. '  Indeed !  What  has  death  to  do  with 
buildings  twenty-four  stories  high,  with  the  fast- 
est trains,  the  noisiest  cities,  the  busiest  crowds  in 
the  world,  and  generally  the  largest,  the  finest,  the 
most  accelerated  of  everything  that  exists  ?  Am- 
erica has  sloughed  off  religion;  and  as,  in  the  his- 
tory of  Europe,  religion  has  underlain  every  other 
activity,  she  has  sloughed  off,  along  with  it,  the 
whole  European  system  of  spiritual  life.  Litera- 
ture, for  instance,  and  Art,  do  not  exist  across  the 
Atlantic.  I  am  aware,  of  course,  that  Americans 
write  books  and  paint  pictures.  But  their  books  are 
not  Literature,  nor  their  pictures  Art,  except  in  so 
far  as  they  represent  a  faint  adumbration  of  the 
European  tradition.  The  true  spirit  of  America 
has  no  use  for  such  activities.  And  even  if,  as  must 
occasionally  happen  in  a  population  of  eighty  mil- 
lions, there  is  born  among  them  a  man  of  artistic 
instincts,  he  is  immediately  and  inevitably  repelled 
[100] 


A  MODERN  SYMPOSIUM 

to  Europe,  whence  he  derives  his  training  and  his 
inspiration,  and  where  alone  he  can  live,  observe 
and  create.  That  this  must  be  so  from  the  nature 
of  the  case  is  obvious  when  we  reflect  that  the 
spirit  of  Art  is  disinterested  contemplation,  while 
that  of  America  is  cupidous  acquisition.  Ameri- 
cans, I  am  aware,  believe  that  they  will  produce 
Literature  and  Art,  as  they  produce  coal  and  steel 
and  oil,  by  the  judicious  application  of  intelligence 
and  capital ;  but  here  they  do  themselves  injustice. 
The  qualities  that  are  making  them  masters  of  the 
world,  unfit  them  for  slighter  and  less  serious  pur- 
suits. The  Future  is  for  them,  the  kingdom  of  ele- 
vators, of  telephones,  of  motor-cars,  of  flying- 
machines.  Let  them  not  idly  hark  back,  misled  by 
effete  traditions,  to  the  old  European  dream  of  the 
kingdom  of  heaven.  '  Excudent  alii '  let  them  say, 
'for  Europe,  Letters  and  Art;  tu  regere  argento 
populos,  Morgane,  memento,  let  America  rule  the 
world  by  Syndicates  and  Trusts ! '  For  such  is  her 
true  destiny;  and  that  she  conceives  it  tc  be  such, 
is  evidenced  by  the  determination  with  which  she 
has  suppressed  all  irrelevant  activities.  Every  kind 
of  disinterested  intellectual  operation  she  has  .se- 
[101] 


A  MODERN  SYMPOSIUM 

verely  repudiated.  In  Europe  we  take  delight  in  the 
operations  of  the  mind  as  such,  we  let  it  play  about 
>•  a  subject,  merely  for  the  fun  of  the  thing ;  we  ap- 
prove knowledge  for  its  own  sake;  we  appreciate 
irony  and  wit.  But  all  this  is  unknown  in  America. 
The  most  intelligent  people  in  the  world,  they 
severely  limit  their  intelligence  to  the  adaptation  of 
means  to  ends.  About  the  ends  themselves  they 
never  permit  themselves  to  speculate ;  and  for  this 
reason,  though  they  calculate,  they  never  think, 
though  they  invent,  they  never  discover,  and 
though  they  talk,  they  never  converse.  For  thought 
implies  speculation;  reflection,  discovery;  conver- 
sation, leisure;  and  all  alike  imply  a  disinterested- 
ness which  has  no  place  in  the  American  system. 
For  the  same  reason  they  do  not  play;  they  have 
converted  games  into  battles;  and  battles  in  which 
every  weapon  is  legitimate  so  long  as  it  is  victorious. 
An  American  foot-ball  match  exhibits  in  a  type  the 
American  spirit,  short,  sharp,  scientific,  intense,  no 
loitering  by  the  road,  no  enjoyment  of  the  process, 
no  favour,  no  quarter,  but  a  fight  to  the  death  with 
victory  as  the  end,  and  anything  and  everything  as 
the  means. 

[102] 


A  MODERN  SYMPOSIUM 

A  nation  so  severely  practical  could  hardly  be 
expected  to  attach  the  same  importance  to  the  emo- 
tions as  has  been  attributed  to  them  by  Euro- 
peans. Feeling,  like  Intellect,  is  not  regarded,  in 
the  West,  as  an  end  in  itself.  And  it  is  not  unin- 
teresting to  note  that  the  Americans  are  the  only 
great  nation  that  have  not  produced  a  single  lyric 
of  love  worth  recording.  Physically,  as  well  as 
spiritually,  they  are  a  people  of  cold  tempera- 
ment. Their  women,  so  much  and,  I  do  not  doubt, 
so  legitimately  admired,  are  as  hard  as  they  are 
brilliant;  their  glitter  is  the  glitter  of  ice.  Thus 
happily  constituted,  Americans  are  able  to  avoid 
the  immense  waste  of  time  and  energy  involved  in 
the  formation  and  maintenance  of  subtle  personal 
relations.  They  marry,  of  course,  they  produce 
children,  they  propagate  the  race;  but,  I  would 
venture  to  say,  they  do  not  love,  as  Europeans 
have  loved;  they  do  not  exploit  the  emotion, 
analyse  and  enjoy  it,  still  less  express  it  in  man- 
ners, in  gesture,  in  epigram,  in  verse.  And  hence 
the  kind  of  shudder  produced  in  a  cultivated  Eu- 
ropean by  the  treatment  of  emotion  in  American 
fiction.  The  authors  are  trying  to  express  some- 
[103] 


A  MODERN  SYMPOSIUM 

thing  they  have  never  experienced,  and  to  graft 
the  European  tradition  on  to  a  civilization  which 
has  none  of  the  elements  necessary  to  nourish  and 
support  it. 

"From  this  brief  analysis  of  the  attitude  of 
Americans  towards  life,  the  point  with  which  I 
started  will,  I  hope,  have  become  clear,  that  it  is 
idle  to  apply  to  them  any  of  the  tests  which  we 
apply  to  a  European  civilization.  For  they  have  re- 
jected, whether  they  know  it  or  not,  our  whole 
scheme  of  values.  What,  then,  is  their  own  ?  What 
do  they  recognize  as  an  end  ?  This  is  an  interesting 
point  on  which  I  have  reflected  much  in  the  course 
of  my  travels.  Sometimes  I  have  thought  it  was 
wealth,  sometimes  power,  sometimes  activity.  But 
a  poem,  or  at  least  a  production  in  metre,  which  I 
came  across  in  the  States,  gave  me  a  new  idea  upon 
the  subject.  On  such  a  point  I  speak  with  great 
diffidence;  but  I  am  inclined  to  think  that  my 
author  was  right;  that  the  real  end  which  Ameri- 
cans set  before  themselves  is  Acceleration.  To  be 
always  moving,  and  always  moving  faster,  that 
they  think  is  the  beatific  life;  and  with  their  happy 
detachment  from  philosophy  and  speculation, 
[104]  " 


A  MODERN  SYMPOSIUM 

they  are  not  troubled  by  the  question,  Whither? 
If  they  are  asked  by  Europeans,  as  they  some- 
times are,  what  is  the  point  of  going  so  fast  ?  their 
only  feeling  is  one  of  genuine  astonishment.  Why, 
they  reply,  you  go  fast!  And  what  more  can  be 
said?  Hence,  their  contempt  for  the  leisure  so 
much  valued  by  Europeans.  Leisure  they  feel,  to  be 
a  kind  of  standing  still,  the  unpardonable  sin. 
Hence,  also,  their  aversion  to  play,  to  conversation, 
to  everything  that  is  not  work.  I  once  asked  an  Am- 
erican who  had  been  describing  to  me  the  scheme 
of  his  laborious  life,  where  it  was  that  the  fun  came 
in  ?  He  replied,  without  hesitation  and  without  re- 
gret, that  it  came  in  nowhere.  How  should  it  ?  It 
could  only  act  as  a  brake;  and  a  brake  upon  Ac- 
celeration is  the  last  thing  tolerable  to  the  Ameri- 
can genius. 

"The  American  genius,  I  say:  but  after  all,  and 
this  is  the  real  point  of  my  remarks,  what  Amer- 
ica is  Europe  is  becoming.  We,  who  sit  here,  with 
the  exception,  of  course,  of  Wilson,  represent  the 
Past,  not  the  Future.  Politicians,  professors,  law- 
yers, doctors,  no  matter  what  our  calling,  our 
judgments  are  determined  by  the  old  scale  of 
[105] 


A  MODERN  SYMPOSIUM 

values.  Intellect,  Beauty,  Emotion,  these  are  the 
things  we  count  precious ;  to  wealth  and  to  progress 
we  are  indifferent,  save  as  conducing  to  these.  And 
thus,  like  the  speakers  who  preceded  me,  we  ven- 
ture to  criticise  and  doubt,  where  the  modern  man, 
American  or  European,  simply  and  whole- 
heartedly accepts.  For  this  it  would  be  idle  for  us 
to  blame  ourselves,  idle  even  to  regret;  we  should 
simply  and  objectively  note  that  we  are  out  of 
court.  All  that  we  say  may  be  true,  but  it  is  irrele- 
vant. '  True, '  says  the  man  of  the  Future, '  we  have 
no  religion,  literature,  or  art;  we  don't  know 
whence  we  come,  nor  whither  we  go ;  but,  what  is 
more  important,  we  don't  care.  What  we  do  know  is, 
that  we  are  moving  faster  than  any  one  ever  moved 
before;  and  that  there  is  every  chance  of  our  mov- 
ing faster  and  faster.  To  inquire  "  whither"  is  the 
one  thing  that  we  recognize  as  blasphemous.  The 
principle  of  the  Universe  is  Acceleration,  and  we 
are  its  exponents;  what  is  not  accelerated  will  be 
extinguished;  and  if  we  cannot  answer  ultimate 
questions,  that  is  the  less  to  be  regretted  in  that,  a 
few  centuries  hence,  there  will  be  nobody  left  to 
ask  them. ' 

[106] 


A  MODERN  SYMPOSIUM 

'*  Such  is  the  attitude  which  I  believe  to  be  that 
of  the  Future,  both  in  the  West  and  in  the  East.  I 
do  not  pretend  to  sympathize  with  it;  but  my  per- 
ception of  it  gives  a  peculiar  piquancy  to  my  own 
position.  I  rejoice  that  I  was  born  at  the  end  of  an 
epoch;  that  I  stand  as  it  were  at  the  summit,  just 
before  the  plunge  into  the  valley  below;  and  look- 
ing back,  survey  and  summarize  in  a  glance  the 
ages  that  are  past.  I  rejoice  that  my  friends  are 
Socrates  and  Plato,  Dante,  Michelangelo,  Goethe 
instead  of  Mr.  Carnegie  and  Mr.  Pierpont  Mor- 
gan. I  rejoice  that  I  belong  to  an  effete  country; 
and  that  I  sit  at  table  with  almost  the  last  repre- 
sentatives of  the  culture,  the  learning  and  the  ideals 
of  centuries  of  civilization.  I  prefer  the  tradition  of 
the  Past  to  that  of  the  Future;  I  value  it  the  more 
for  its  contrast  with  that  which  is  to  come;  and  I 
am  the  more  at  ease  inasmuch  as  I  feel  myself 
divested  of  all  responsibility  towards  generations 
whose  ideals  and  standards  I  am  unable  to 
appreciate. 

"  All  this  shows,  of  course,  merely  that  I  am  not 
one  of  the  people  so  aptly  described  by  Wilson  as 
the  '  new  generation. '  But  I  flatter  myself  that  my 
[107] 


A  MODERN  SYMPOSKM 

intellectual  apprehension  is  not  coloured  by  the 
circumstances  of  my  own  case,  and  that  I  have 
given  you  a  clear  and  objective  picture  of  what 
it  is  that  really  constitutes  progress.  And  with 
that  proud  consciousness  in  my  mind,  I  resume 
my  seat. " 

THE  conclusion  of  this  speech  was  greeted 
with  a  hubbub  of  laughter,  approval,  and 
protest  confusedly  mixed ;  in  the  midst  of 
which  it  occurred  to  me  that  I  would  select  Au- 
dubon  as  the  next  speaker.  My  reason  was  that 
Ellis,  as  I  thought,  under  cover  of  an  extravagant 
fit  of  spleen,  had  made  rather  a  formidable  attack 
on  the  doctrine  of  progress  as  commonly  under- 
stood by  social  reformers.  He  had  given  us,  as  it 
were,  the  first  notes  of  the  Negative.  But  Audubon, 
I  knew,  would  play  the  tune  through  to  the  end; 
and  I  thought  we  might  as  well  have  it  all,  and 
have  it  before  it  should  be  too  late  for  the  possible 
correctives  of  other  speakers.  Audubon  was  en- 
gaged in  some  occupation  in  the  city,  and  how  he 
came  to  be  a  member  of  our  society  I  cannot  tell ; 
for  he  professed  an  uncompromising  aversion  to  all 
speculation.  He  was,  however,  a  regular  attend- 
[108' 


A  MODERN  SYMPOSIUM 

ant  and  spoke  well,  though  always  in  the  sense 
that  there  was  nothing  worth  speaking  about.  On 
this  occasion  he  displayed,  as  usual,  some  reluc- 
tance to  get  on  to  his  feet;  and  even  when  he  was 
overruled  began,  characteristically,  with  a  pro- 
test. 

"  I  don't  see  why  it  should  be  a  rule  that  every- 
body must  speak.  I  believe  I  have  said  something 
of  the  kind  before  "  —  but  here  he  was  interrupted 
by  a  general  exclamation  that  he  had  said  it  much 
too  often ;  whereupon  he  dropped  the  subject,  but 
maintained  his  tone  of  protest.  "  You  don't  under- 
stand, "  he  went  on,  "  what  a  difficult  position  I  am 
in,  especially  in  a  discussion  of  this  kind.  My 
standpoint  is  radically  different  from  that  of  the 
rest  of  you ;  and  anything  I  say  is  bound  to  be  out 
of  key.  You  're  all  playing  what  you  think  to  be  the 
game  of  life,  and  playing  it  willingly.  But  I  play 
only  under  compulsion ;  if  you  call  it  playing,  when 
one  is  hounded  out  to  field  in  all  weathers  without 
ever  having  a  chance  of  an  innings.  Or,  rather,  the 
game  's  more  like  tennis  than  cricket,  and  we  're 
the  little  boys  who  pick  up  the  balls  —  and  that,  in 
my  opinion,  is  a  damned  humiliating  occupation. 
[109] 


A  MODERN  SYMPOSIUM 

And  surely  you  must  all  really  think  so  too!  Of 
course,  you  don't  like  to  admit  it.  Nobody  does.  In 
the  pulpit,  in  the  press,  in  conversation,  even, 
there  's  a  conspiracy  of  silence  and  bluff.  It 's  only 
in  rare  moments,  when  a  few  men  get  together  in 
the  smoking-room,  that  the  truth  comes  out.  But 
when  it  does  come  out  it 's  always  the  same  refrain, 
'  cui  bono,  cui  bono  ? '  I  don't  take  much  account 
of  myself;  but,  if  there  is  one  thing  of  which  I  am 
proud,  it  is  that  I  have  never  let  myself  be  duped. 
From  the  earliest  days  I  can  remember  I  realized 
what  the  nature  of  this  world  really  is.  And  all  ex- 
perience has  confirmed  that  first  intuition.  That 
other  people  don't  seem  to  have  it,  too,  is  a  source 
of  constant  amazement  to  me.  But  really,  and 
without  wishing  to  be  arrogant,  I  believe  the  rea- 
m  is  that  they  choose  to  be  duped  and  I  don't. 
They  intend,  at  all  costs,  to  be  happy,  or  inter- 
ested, or  whatever  it  is  that  they  prefer  to  call  it. 
And  I  don't  say  they  are  not  wise  in  their  genera- 
tion. But  I  'm  not  made  like  that;  I  just  see  things 
as  they  are;  and  I  see  that  they  're  very  bad  —  a 
point  in  which  I  differ  from  the  Creator. 

"Well,  now,  to  come  to  to-night's  discussion, 
[110] 


A  MODERN  SYMPOSIUM 

and  my  attitude  towards  it.  You  have  assumed 
throughout,  as,  of  course,  you  were  bound  to  do, 
that  things  are  worth  while.  But  if  they  aren't, 
what  becomes  of  all  your  aims,  all  your  views, 
all  your  problems  and  disputes?  The  basis  on 
which  you  are  all  agreed,  however  much  you  may 
differ  in  detail,  is  that  things  can  be  made  bet- 
ter, and  that  it's  worth  while  to  make  them  so. 
But  if  one  denies  both  propositions,  what  happens 
to  the  superstructure?  And  I  do  deny  them;  and 
not  only  that,  but  I  can't  conceive  how  any  one 
ever  came  to  accept  them.  Surely,  if  one  did  n't  ap- 
proach the  question  with  an  irrational  basis  to- 
wards optimism,  one  would  never  imagine  that 
there  is  such  a  thing  as  progress  in  anything  that 
really  matters.  Or,  are  even  we  here  impressed  by 
such  silly  and  irrelevant  facts  as  telephones  and 
motor-cars  ?  Ellis,  I  should  think,  has  said  enough 
to  dispel  that  kind  of  illusion;  and  I  don't  want  to 
labour  a  tedious  point.  If  we  are  to  look  for 
progress  at  all  we  must  look  for  it,  I  suppose,  in 
men.  And  I  have  never  seen  any  evidence  that  men 
are  generally  better  than  they  used  to  be;  on  the 
contrary,  I  think  there  is  evidence  that  they  are 
[111] 


A  MODERN  SYMPOSIUM 

worse.  But  anyhow,  even  granting  that  we  could 
make  things  a  bit  better,  what  would  be  the  use  of 
doing  it  in  a  world  like  this  ?  If  the  whole  structure 
of  the  universe  is  bad,  what 's  the  good  of  fiddling 
with  the  details?  You  might  as  well  waste  your 
time  in  decorating  the  saloon  of  a  sinking  ship. 
Granting  that  you  can  improve  the  distribution  of 
property,  and  raise  the  standard  of  health  and  in- 
telligence and  all  the  rest  of  it,  granting  you  could 
to-morrow  introduce  your  socialist  state,  or  your 
liberal  state,  or  your  anarchical  co-operation,  or 
whatever  the  plan  may  be  —  how  would  you  be 
better  off  in  anything  that  matters?  The  main 
governing  facts  would  be  unaltered.  Men,  for  ex- 
ample, would  still  be  born,  without  being  asked 
whether  they  want  it  or  no.  And  that  alone,  to  my 
mind,  is  enough  to  condemn  the  whole  business.  I 
can't  think  how  it  is  that  people  don't  resent  more 
than  they  do  the  mere  insult  to  their  self-respect 
involved  in  such  a  situation.  Nothing  can  cure  it, 
nothing  can  improve  it.  It 's  a  fundamental  condi- 
tion of  life. 

"  If  that  were  all  it  would  be  bad  enough.  But 
that 's  only  the  beginning.  For  the  world  into  which 
[112] 


A  MODERN  SYMPOSIUM 

we  are  thus  ignominiously  flung  turns  out  to  be  in- 
calculable and  irrational.  There  are,  of  course,  I 
know,  what  are  called  the  laws  of  nature.  But  I  — 
to  tell  the  honest  truth  —  I  don't  believe  in  them. 
I  mean,  I  see  no  reason  to  suppose  that  the  sun  will 
rise  to-morrow,  or  that  the  seasons  will  continue  to 
observe  their  course,  or  that  any  of  our  most  cer- 
tain expectations  will  be  fulfilled  in  the  future  as 
they  have  been  in  the  past.  We  import  into  the 
universe  our  own  prejudice  in  favour  of  order;  and 
the  universe,  I  admit,  up  to  a  point  appears  to  con- 
form to  it.  But  I  don't  trust  the  conformity.  Too 
many  evidences  abound  of  frivolous  and  incal- 
culable caprice.  Why  should  not  the  appearance  of 
order  be  but  one  caprice  the  more,  or  even  a  crown- 
ing device  of  calculated  malice  ?  And  anyhow,  the 
things  that  most  concern  us,  tempests,  epidemics, 
accidents,  from  the  catastrophe  of  birth  to  the  de  • 
liverance  of  death,  we  have  no  power  to  foresee 
or  to  forestall.  Yet,  in  face  of  all  this,  borne  home 
to  us  every  hour  of  every  day,  we  cling  to  the  creed 
of  universal  law;  and  on  the  flux  of  chaos  write 
our  '  credo  quia  impossibile. ' 

"Well,  that  is  a  heresy  of  mine  I  have  never 
[113] 


A  MODERN  SYMPOSIUM 

found  any  one  to  share.  But  no  matter.  My  case  is 
so  strong  I  can  afford  to  give  it  away  point  by 
point.  Granting  then,  that  there  were  order  in  the 
universe,  how  does  that  make  it  any  better  ?  Does 
it  not  rather  make  it  worse,  if  the  order  is  such  as 
to  produce  evil  ?  And  how  great  that  evil  is  I  need 
not  insist.  For  it  has  been  presupposed  in  every- 
thing that  has  been  said  to-night.  If  it  were  a  satis- 
factory world  you  would  n't  all  be  wanting  to  alter 
it.  Still,  you  may  say  —  people  always  do  —  - '  if 
there  is  evil  there  is  also  good. '  But  it  is  just  the 
things  people  call  good,  even  more  than  those  they 
admit  to  be  evil,  that  make  me  despair  of  the 
world.  How  any  one  with  self-respect  can  accept, 
and  accept  thankfully,  the  sort  of  things  people  do 
accept  is  to  me  a  standing  mystery.  It  is  surely  the 
greatest  triumph  achieved  by  the  Power  that  made 
the  universe  that  every  week  there  gather  into  the 
Churches  congregations  of  victims  to  recite  their 
gratitude  for  '  their  creation,  preservation,  and  all 
the  blessings  of  this  life.  *  The  blessings !  What  are 
they  ?  Money  ?  Success  ?  Reputation  ?  I  don't  pro- 
fess, myself,  to  be  anything  better  than  a  man  of 
the  world;  but  that  those  things  should  be  valued 
[114] 


A  MODERN  SYMPOSIUM 

as  they  are  by  men  of  the  world  is  a  thing  that 
passes  my  understanding.  'Well,  but,'  says  the 
moralist  'there's  always  duty  and  work.'  But 
what  is  the  value  of  work  if  there 's  nothing 
worth  working  for?  'Ah,  but,'  says  the  poet, 
'  there  's  beauty  and  love. '  But  the  beauty  and 
love  he  seeks  is  something  he  never  finds.  What 
he  grasps  is  the  shadow,  not  the  thing.  And  even 
the  shadow  flits  past  and  eludes  him  on  the  stream 
of  time. 

"  And  just  there  is  the  final  demonstration  of  the 
malignity  of  the  scheme  of  things.  Time  itself 
works  against  us.  The  moments  that  are  evil  it 
eternalizes;  the  moments  that  might  be  good  it 
hurries  to  annihilation.  All  that  is  most  precious  is 
most  precarious.  Vainly  do  we  cry  to  the  moment : 
'  Verweile  doch,  du  bist  so  schon ! '  Only  the  heavy 
hours  are  heavy-footed.  The  winged  Psyche,  even 
at  the  moment  of  birth,  is  sick  with  the  pangs  of 
dissolution. 

"These,   surely,   are  facts,   not  imaginations. 
Why,  then,  is  it  that  men  refuse  to  look  them  in  the 
face  ?  Or,  if  they  do,  turn  at  once  away  to  con- 
struct some  other  kind  of  world  ?  For  that  is  the 
[115] 


A  MODERN  SYMPOSIUM 

most  extraordinary  thing  of  all,  that  men  invent 
systems,  and  that  those  systems  are  optimistic.  It 
is  as  though  they  said : '  Things  must  be  good.  But 
as  they  obviously  are  not  good,  they  must  really  be 
other  than  they  are.'  And  hence  these  extra- 
ordinary doctrines,  so  pitiful,  so  pathetic,  so 
absurd,  of  the  eternal  good  God  who  made  this 
bad  world,  of  the  Absolute  whose  only  manifes- 
tation is  the  Relative,  of  the  Real  which  has  so 
much  less  reality  than  the  Phenomenal.  Or,  if 
all  that  be  rejected,  we  transfer  our  heaven  from 
eternity  to  time,  and  project  into  the  future  the 
perfection  we  miss  in  the  present  or  in  the  past. 
*True, '  we  say,  'a  bad  world!  but  then  how 
good  it  will  be!'  And  with  that  illusion  gen- 
eration after  generation  take  up  their  bur- 
den and  march,  because  beyond  the  wilderness 
there  must  be  a  Promised  Land  into  which 
some  day  some  creatures  unknown  will  enter.  As 
though  the  evil  of  the  past  could  be  redeemed  by 
any  achievement  of  the  future,  or  the  perfection 
of  one  make  up  for  the  irremediable  failure  of 
another ! 

"  Such  ideas  have  only  to  be  stated  for  their  ab- 
[116] 


A  MODERN  SYMPOSIUM 

surdity  to  be  palpable.  Yet  none  the  less  they  hold 
men.  Why  ?  I  cannot  tell.  I  only  know  that  they  do 
not  and  cannot  hold  me ;  that  I  look  like  a  stranger 
from  another  world  upon  the  business  of  this  one; 
that  I  am  among  you,  but  not  of  you;  that  your 
motives  and  aims  to  me  are  utterly  unintelligible; 
that  you  can  give  no  account  of  them  to  which  I 
can  attach  any  sense;  that  I  have  no  clue  to  the 
enigma  you  seem  so  lightly  to  solve  by  your  re- 
ligion, your  philosophy,  your  science;  that  your 
hopes  are  not  mine,  your  ambitions  not  mine,  your 
principles  not  mine;  that  I  am  shipwrecked,  and 
see  around  me  none  but  are  shipwrecked  too; 
yet,  that  these,  as  they  cling  to  their  spars,  call 
them  good  ships  and  true,  speak  bravely  of  the 
harbour  to  which  they  are  prosperously  sailing,  and 
even  as  they  are  engulfed,  with  their  last  breath, 
cry,  *lo,  we  are  arrived,  and  our  friends  are 
waiting  on  the  quay!'  Who,  under  these  circum- 
stances is  mad  ?  Is  it  I  ?  Is  it  you  ?  I  can  only  drift 
and  wait.  It  may  be  that  beyond  these  waters  there 
is  a  harbour  and  a  shore.  But  I  cannot  steer  for  it, 
for  I  have  no  rudder,  no  compass,  no  chart.  You 
say  you  have.  Go  on,  then,  but  do  not  call  to  me.  I 
[117] 


A  MODERN  SYMPOSIUM 

must  sink  or  swim  alone.  And  the  best  for  which  1 
can  hope  is  speedily  to  be  lost  in  the  silent  gulf  of 
oblivion. " 

OFTEN  as  I  had  heard  Audubon  express 
these  sentiments  before,  I  had  never 
known  him  to  reveal  so  freely  and  so 
passionately  the  innermost  bitterness  of  his  soul. 
There  was,  no  doubt,  something  in  the  circum- 
stances of  the  time  and  place  that  prompted  him  to 
this  personal  note.  For  it  was  now  the  darkest  and 
stillest  hour  of  the  night ;  and  we  sat  in  the  dim  star- 
light, hardly  seeing  one  another,  so  that  it  seemed 
possible  to  say,  as  behind  a  veil,  things  that  other- 
wise it  would  have  been  natural  to  suppress.  A  long 
silence  followed  Audubon's  last  words.  They  went 
home,  I  daresay  to  many  of  us  more  than  we  should 
have  cared  to  confess.  And  I  felt  some  difficulty 
whom  to  choose  of  the  few  who  had  not  yet  spoken, 
so  as  to  avoid,  as  far  as  possible,  a  tone  tt  at  would 
jar  upon  our  mood.  Finally,  I  selected  Cor)  at,  the 
poet,  knowing  he  was  incapable  of  a  false  note,  and 
hoping  he  might  perhaps  begin  to  puITtrs,  as  it 
were,  up  out  of  the  pit  into  which  we  had  slipped. 
He  responded  from  the  darkness,  with  the  hesita- 


A  MODERN  SYMPOSIUM 

tion  and  incoherence  which,  in  him,  I  have  always 
found  so  charming. 

"  I  don't  know,"  he  began,  "  of  course  —  well, 
yes,  it  may  be  all  very  bad  —  at  least  for  some  peo- 
ple. But  I  don't  believe  it  is.  And  I  doubt  whether 
Audubon  really  —  well,  I  ought  n't  to  say  that,  I 
suppose.  But  anyhow,  I  'm  sure  most  people  don't 
agree  with  him.  At  any  rate,  for  my  part,  I  find  life 
extraordinarily  good,  just  as  it  is,  not  mine  only,  I 
mean,  but  everybody's;  well,  except  Audubon's,  I 
suppose  I  ought  to  say,  and  even  he,  perhaps  finds 
it  rather  good  to  be  able  to  find  it  so  bad.  But  I  'm 
not  going  to  argue  with  him,  because  I  know  it 's 
no  use.  It 's  all  the  other  people  I  want  to  quarrel 
with  —  except  Ellis,  who  has  I  believe  some  idea  of 
the  things  that  really  count.  But  I  don't  think  Alli- 
son has,  or  Wilson,  or  most  of  the  people  who  talk 
about  progress.  Because,  if  you  project,  so  to 
speak,  all  your  goods  into  the  future,  that  shows 
that  you  don't  appreciate  those  that  belong  to  life 
just  as  it  is  and  wherever  it  is.  And  there  must,  I 
am  sure,  be  something  wrong  about  a  view  that 
makes  the  past  and  the  present  merely  a  means  to 
the  future.  It 's  as  though  one  were  to  take  a  bottle 
[119] 


A  MODERN  SYMPOSIUM 

and  turn  it  upside  down,  emptying  the  wine  out 
without  noticing  it;  and  then  plan  how  tremen- 
dously one  will  improve  the  shape  of  the  bottle. 
Well,  I  'm  not  interested  in  the  shape  of  bottles. 
And  I  am  interested  in  wine.  And  —  which  is  the 
point  —  I  know  that  the  wine  is  always  there.  It 
was  there  in  the  past,  it 's  here  in  the  present,  and 
it  will  be  there  in  the  future;  yes,  in  spite  of  you 
all ! "  He  flung  this  out  with  a  kind  of  defiance  that 
made  us  laugh.  Whereupon  he  paused,  as  if  he  had 
done  something  indiscreet,  and  then  after  looking 
in  vain  for  a  bridge  to  take  him  across  to  his  next 
starting  place,  decided,  as  it  seemed,  to  jump,  and 
went  on  as  follows :  "  There  's  Wilson,  for  instance, 
tells  us  that  the  new  generation  have  'no  use  for* 
—  I  don't  know  that  he  used  that  dreadful  phrase, 
but  that 's  what  he  meant  —  that  they  have  '  no 
use  for '  the  Greeks,  or  the  Romans,  or  the  Middle 
Ages,  or  the  eighteenth  century,  or  anything  but 
themselves.  Well,  I  can  only  say  I'm  very  sorry 
for  them,  and  very  glad  I  'm  not  one  of  them.  Why, 
just  think  of  the  extraordinary  obliquity,  or  rather 
blindness  of  it!  Because  you  don't  agree  with  Plato, 
or  Marcus  Aurelius,  or  Saint  Francis,  you  think 
[120] 


A  MODERN  SYMPOSIUM 

they  're  only  fit  for  the  ash-heap.  You  might  as 
well  say  you  would  n't  drink  any  wine  except  what 
was  made  to-day !  The  literature  and  art  of  the  past 
can  never  be  dead.  It 's  the  flask  where  the  geni  of 
life  is  imprisoned;  you  've  only  to  open  it  and  the 
life  is  yours.  And  what  life!  That  it's  different 
from  ours  is  just  its  merit.  I  don't  mean  that  it 's 
necessarily  better;  but  it  preserves  for  us  the  things 
we  have  dropped  out.  Because  we,  no  more  than 
the  men  of  the  past,  exhaust  all  the  possibilities. 
The  whole  wonderful  drama  of  life  is  unfolded  in 
time,  and  we  of  this  century  are  only  one  scene  of 
it;  not  the  most  passionate  either  or  the  most  ab- 
sorbing. As  actors,  of  course,  we  're  concerned  only 
with  this  scene.  But  the  curious  thing  is,  we  're 
spectators,  too,  or  can  be  if  we  like.  And  from  the 
spectator's  point  of  view,  many  of  the  episodes  in 
the  past  are  much  more  interesting,  if  not  more  im- 
portant, than  those  of  the  present.  I  mean,  it 
seems  to  me  so  stupid  —  I  ought  n't  to  say 
stupid,  I  suppose,  because  of  course  you  are  n't 
exactly  — "  Whereat  we  laughed  again,  and 
he  pulled  himself  up.  "  What  I  mean  is,  that  to 
take  the  philosophy  or  the  religion  of  the  past 
[121] 


A  MODERN  SYMPOSIUM 

and  put  it  into  your  laboratory  and  test  it  for 
truth,  and  throw  it  away  if  it  does  n't  answer  the 
test,  is  to  misconceive  the  whole  value  and  mean- 
ing of  it.  The  real  question  is,  what  extraordinary, 
fascinating,  tragic  or  comic  life  went  to  produce 
this  precious  specimen  ?  What  new  revelation  does 
it  give  of  the  possibilities  of  the  world  ?  That  *s 
how  you  look  at  it,  if  you  have  the  sense  of  life. 
You  feel  after  life  everywhere.  You  love  it  when 
you  touch  it.  You  ask  it  no  questions  about  being 
good  or  bad.  It  just  is,  and  you  are  akin  to  it. 
Fancy,  for  instance,  a  man  being  able  to  walk 
through  the  British  Museum  and  pass  the  frieze  of 
the  Parthenon,  and  say  he  has  no  use  for  it !  And 
why  ?  Because,  I  suppose,  we  don't  dress  like  that 
now,  and  can't  ride  horses  bareback.  Well,  so 
much  the  worse  for  us!  But  just  think!  There, 
shrieking  from  the  wall  —  no,  I  ought  to  say  sing- 
ing with  the  voice  of  angels  —  is  the  spirit  of  life  in 
its  loveliest,  strongest,  divinest  incarnation,  say- 
ing 'love  me,  understand  me,  be  like  me  I*  And  the 
new  generation  passes  by  with  its  nose  in  the  air 
sniffing, "'  No !  You  're  played  out !  You  did  n't  know 
science.  And  you  did  n't  produce  four  children 
[122] 


A  MODERN  SYMPOSIUM 

a-piece,  as  we  mean  to.  And  your  education  was 
rhetorical,  and  your  philosophy  absurd,  and  your 
vices  —  oh,  unmentionable!  No,  no,  young  men! 
Not  for  us,  thank  you ! '  And  so  they  stalk  on,  don't 
you  see  them,  with  their  rational  costume,  and 
their  rational  minds,  and  their  hard  little  hearts, 
and  the  empty  place  where  their  imagination  ought 
to  be!  Dreadful,  dreadful!  Or  perhaps  they  go, 
say,  to  Assisi,  and  Saint  Francis  comes  to  talk  to 
them.  And  'Look,'  he  says,  'what  a  beautiful 
world,  if  you  'd  only  get  rid  of  your  encumbrances ! 
Money,  houses,  clothes,  food,  it 's  all  so  much  ob- 
struction! Come  and  see  the  real  thing;  come  and 
live  with  the  life  of  the  soal,  burn  like  a  flame, 
blossom  like  a  flower,  flow  like  a  mountain 
stream!'  'My  dear  sir,'  they  reply,  'you're  un- 
clean, impudent  and  ignorant!  Moreover  you  're 
encouraging  mendicancy  and  superstition.  Not 
to-day,  thank  you ! '  And  off  they  go  to  the  Charity 
Organization  Committee.  It 's  —  it 's  —  "  He 
pulled  himself  up  again,  and  then  went  on  more 
quietly.  "  Well,  one  ought  n't  to  get  angry,  and  I 
daresay  I  'm  misrepresenting  everybody  Besides, 
I  haven't  said  exactly  what  I  wanted  to  say.  I 
[123] 


A  MODERN  SYMPOSIUM 

wanted  to  say  —  what  was  it?  Oh,  yes!  that  this 
kind  of  attitude  is  bound  up  with  the  idea  of  pro- 
gress. It  comes  of  taking  all  the_yalue^out  of  the 
past  and  present,  in  order  to  put  it  into  the  future. 
And  then  you  don't  put  it  there!  You  can't!  It 
evaporates  somehow,  in  the  process.  Where  is  it 
then  ?  Well,  I  believe  it 's  always  there,  in  life,  and 
in  every  kind  of  life.  It 's  there  all  the  time,  in  all 
the  things  you  condemn.  Of  course  the  things  real- 
ly are  bad  that  you  say  are  bad.  But  they  're  so 
good  as  well!  I  mean  —  well,  the  other  day  I  read 
one  of  those  dreadful  articles  —  at  least,  of  course 
they  're  very  useful  I  suppose  —  about  the  condi- 
tion of  the  agricultural  labourer.  Well,  then  I  took 
a  ride  in  the  country,  and  saw  it  all  in  its  setting 
and  complete,  with  everything  the  article  had  left 
out;  and  it  was  n't  so  bad  after  all.  I  don't  mean  to 
say  it  was  all  good  either,  but  it  was  just  wonder- 
ful. There  were  great  horses  with  shaggy  fetlocks 
resting  in  green  fields,  and  cattle  wading  in  shallow 
fords,  and  streams  fringed  with  willows,  and  little 
cheeping  birds  among  the  reeds,  and  larks  and 
cuckoos  and  thrushes.  And  there  were  orchards 
white  with  blossom,  and  little  gardens  in  the  sun, 
[124] 


A  MODERN  SYMPOSIUM 

and  shadows  of  clouds  brushing  over  the  plain. 
And  the  much-discussed  labourer  was  in  the  midst 
of  all  this.  And  he  really  was  n't  an  incarnate 
grievance !  He  was  thinking  about  his  horses,  or  his 
bread  and  cheese,  or  his  children  squalling  in  the 
road,  or  his  pig  and  his  cocks  and  hens.  Of  course  I 
don't  suppose  he  knew  how  beautiful  everything 
was;  but  I  'm  sure  he  had  a  sort  of  comfortable 
feeling  of  being  a  part  of  it  all,  of  being  somehow 
all  right.  And  he  was  n't  worrying  about  his  condi- 
tion, as  you  all  worry  for  him.  I  don't  mean  you 
are  n't  right  J;o  worry,  in  a  way;  except  that  no  one 
ought  to  worry.  But  you  ought  n't  to  suppose  it 's 
all  a  dreadful  and  intolerable  thing,  just  because 
you  can  imagine  something  better.  That,  of 
course,  is  only  one  case;  but  I  believe  it 's  the  same 
everywhere;  yes,  even  in  the  big  cities,  which,  to 
my  taste,  look  from  outside  much  more  repulsive 
and  terrible.  There  's  a  quality  in  the  inevitable 
facts  of  life,  in  making  one's  living,  and  marrying 
and  producing  children,  in  the  ending  of  one  and 
the  beginning  of  another  day,  in  the  uncertainties 
and  fears  and  hopes,  in  the  tragedies  as  well  as  the 
comedies,  something  that  arrests  and  interests  and 
[125] 


A  MODERN  SYMPOSIUM 

absorbs,  even  if  it  does  n't  delight.  I  'm  not  saying 
people  are  happy;  sometimes  they  are  and  some- 
times they  are  n't.  But  anyhow  they  are  interested. 
And  life  itself  is  the  interest.  And  that  interest  is 
perennial,  and  of  all  ages  and  all  classes.  And  if 
you  leave  it  out  you  leave  out  the  only  thing  that 
counts.  That 's  why  ideals  are  so  empty;  just  be- 
cause, I  mean,  they  don't  exist.  And  I  assure  you 
—  now  I  'm  going  to  confess  —  that  often,  when  I 
come  away  from  some  meeting  or  from  reading 
some  dreadful  article  on  social  reform,  I  feel  as 
if  I  could  embrace  everything  and  every  one  I 
come  across,  simply  for  being  so  good  as  to  exist  — 
the  'bus-drivers,  the  cabmen,  the  shop-keepers,  the 
slum-landlords,  the  slum-victims,  the  prostitutes, 
the  thieves.  There  they  are,  anyhow,  in  their  ex- 
traordinary setting,  floating  on  the  great  river  of 
life,  that  was  and  is  and  will  be,  itself  its  own  justi- 
fication, through  whatever  country  it  may  flow. 
And  if  you  don't  realize  that  —  if  you  have  a  whole 
community  that  does  n't  realize  it  —  then,  how- 
ever happy  and  comfortable  and  equitable  and  all 
the  rest  of  it  you  make  your  society,  you  have  n't 
really  done  much  for  them.  Their  last  state  may 
[126] 


A  MODERN  SYMPOSIUM 

even  be  worse  than  the  first,  because  they  will  have 
lost  the  natural  instinctive  acceptance  of  life,  with- 
out learning  how  to  accept  it  on  the  higher  plane. 
"  And  that  is  why  —  now  comes  what  I  really  do 
care  about,  and  what  I  've  been  wanting  to  say  — 
that  is  why  there  is  nothing  so  important  for  the 
future  or  the  present  of  the  world  as  poetry.  Alli- 
son, for  instance,  and  Wilson  would  be  different 
men  if  only  they  would  read  my  works !  I  'm  not 
sure  even,  if  I  may  say  so,  that  Remenham  himself 
would  n't  be  the  better."  Remenham,  however, 
smilingly  indicated  that  he  had  read  them.  Where- 
at Coryat  rather  comically  remarked,  "Oh,  well! 
Yes!  Perhaps  then  my  poetry  is  n't  quite  good 
enough.  But  there  's  Shakspere,  and  Milton,  and 
-  I  don't  care  who  it  is,  so  long  as  it  has  the  essen- 
tial^! _all  great  poetry,  and  that  is  to  make  you  feel 
the  worth  of  things.  I  don't  mean  by  that  the  hap- 
piness, but  just  the  extraordinary  value,  of  which 
all  these  unsolved  questions  about  Good  and  Evil 
are  themselves  part.  No  one,  I  am  sure,  ever  laid 
down  a  great  tragedy  —  take  the  most  terrible  of 
all,  take  '  Lear'  —  without  an  overwhelming  sense 
of  the  value  of  life;  life  as  it  is,  life  at  its  most  piti- 
[127] 


A  MODERN  SYMPOSIUM 

less  and  cruel,  with  all  its  iniquities,  suffering,  per- 
plexity; without  feeling  he  would  far  rather  have 
lived  and  had  all  that  than  not  have  lived  at  all. 
But  tragedy  is  an  extreme  case.  In  every  simpler 
and  more  common  case  the  poet  does  the  same 
thing  for  us.  He  shows  us  that  the  lives  he  touches 
have  worth,  worth  of  pleasure,  of  humour,  of  pa- 
tience, of  wisdom  painfully  acquired,  of  endur- 
ance, of  hope,  even  I  will  say  of  failure  and  despair. 
He  does  n't  blink  anything,  he  looks  straight  at 
it  all,  but  he  sees  it  in  the  true  perspective,  under  a 
white  light,  and  seeing  all  the  Evil  says  nevertheless 
with  God,  '  Behold,  it  is  very  good.'  You  see,"  he 
added,  with  his  charming  smile,  turning  to  Audu- 
bon,  "  I  agree  with  God,  not  with  you.  And  per- 
haps if  you  were  to  read  poetry  .  .  .  but,  you 
know,  you  must  not  only  read  it;  you've  got  to 
feel  it." 

"  Ah,  said  Audubon,  "  but  that  I  'm  afraid  is  the 
difficulty." 

"  I  suppose  it  is.  Well  —  I  don't  know  that  I  can 
say  any  more." 

And  without  further  ado  he  dropped  back  into 
his  seat. 

[128] 


A  MODERN  SYMPOSIUM 

SITTING  next  to  Coryat  was  a  man  who  had 
not  for  a  long  time  been  present  at  our  meet- 
ings. His  name  was  Harington.  He  was  a 
wealthy  man,  the  head  of  a  very  ancient  family; 
and  at  one  time  had  taken  a  prominent  part  in  poli- 
tics. But,  of  late,  he  had  resided  mainly  in  Italy  de- 
voting himself  to  study  and  to  the  collection  of 
works  of  art.  I  did  not  know  what  his  opinions  were, 
for  it  so  happened  that  I  had  never  heard  him 
speak  or  had  any  talk  with  him.  I  had  no  idea, 
therefore,  when  I  called  upon  him,  what  he  would 
be  likely  to  say,  and  I  waited  with  a  good  deal  of 
curiosity  as  he  stood  a  few  moments  silent.  It  was 
now  beginning  to  get  light,  and  I  could  see  his  face, 
which  was  unusually  handsome  and  distin- 
guished. He  had  indeed  the  air  of  a  seventeenth 
century  nobleman,  and  might,  except  for  the  cos- 
tume, have  stepped  out  of  a  canvas  of  Van  Dyck. 
Presently  he  spoke  in  a  rich  mellow  voice  and  with 
a  gravity  that  harmonized  with  his  bearing. 

"Let  me  begin  with  a  confession,  perhaps  I 

ought  even  to  say  an  apology.  To  be  among  you 

again  after  so  many  years  is  a  privilege;  but  it  is 

one  which  brings  with  it  elements  of  embarrass- 

[129] 


A  MODERN  SYMPOSIUM 

ment.  I  have  lived  so  long  in  a  foreign  land  that  I 
feel  myself  an  alien  here.  I  hear  voices  familiar  of 
old,  but  I  have  forgotten  their  language;  I  see 
forms  once  well-known,  but  the  atmosphere  in 
which  they  move  seems  strange.  I  am  fresh  from 
Italy;  and  England  comes  upon  me  with  a  shock. 
Even  her  physical  aspect  I  see  as  I  never  saw  it  be- 
fore. I  find  it  lovely,  with  a  loveliness  peculiar  and 
unique.  But  I  miss  something  to  which  I  have 
become  accustomed  in  the  south;  I  miss  light, 
form,  greatness,  and  breadth.  Instead,  there  is 
grey  or  golden  haze,  blurred  outlines,  tender  skies, 
lush  luxurious  greenery.  Italy  rings  like  metal; 
England  is  a  muffled  drum.  The  one  has  the  ardour 
of  Beauty;  the  other  the  charm  of  the  Picturesque. 
I  dwell  upon  this  because  I  seem  to  see  —  perhaps 
I  am  fanciful  —  a  kindred  distinction  between  the 
north  and  the  south  in  quality  of  mind.  The  Greek 
intelligence,  and  the  Italian,  is  pitiless,  searching, 
white  as  the  Mediterranean  sunshine;  the  English 
and  German  is  kindly,  discreet,  amiably  and  ten- 
derly confused.  The  one  blazes  naked  in  a  brazen 
sky;  the  other  is  tempered  by  vapours  of  sentiment. 
The  English,  in  particular,  I  think,  seldom  make  a 
[130] 


A  MODERN  SYMPOSIUM 

serious  attempt  to  face  the  truth.  Their  prejudices 
and  ideals  shut  them  in,  like  their  green  hedges; 
and  they  live,  even  intellectually,  in  a  country  of 
little  fields.  I  do  not  deny  that  this  is  soothing  and 
restful;  but  I  feel  it  —  shall  I  confess  —  intoler- 
ably cooping.  I  long  for  the  searching  light,  the 
wide  prospect ;  for  the  vision  of  things  as  they  real- 
ly are.  I  have  consorted  too  long  with  Aristotle  and 
Machiavelli  to  find  myself  at  home  in  the  country 
of  the  Anglican  Church  and  of  Herbert  Spencer." 
Here  he  paused,  and  seemed  to  hesitate,  while  we 
wondered  what  he  could  be  leading  up  to.  Then, 
resuming,  "  This  may  seem,"  he  went  on,  "  a  long 
introduction;  but  it  is  not  irrelevant;  though  I  feel 
some  hesitation  in  applying  it.  But,  if  the  last 
speaker  will  permit  me  to  take  my  text  from  him,  I 
would  ask  him,  is  it  not  a  curiously  indiscriminate 
procedure  to  affirm  indifferently  value  in  all  life  ?  A 
poet  surely  —  and  Coryat's  practice,  if  he  will  al- 
low me  to  say  so,  is  sounder  than  his  theory  —  a 
poet  seeks  to  render,  wherever  he  can  find  it,  the  ex- 
quisite, the  choice,  the  distinguished  and  the  rare. 
Not  life,  but  beauty  is  his  quest.  He  does  not  repro- 
duce Nature,  he  imposes  upon  her  a  standard.  And 
[131] 


A  MODERN  SYMPOSIUM 

so  it  is  with  every  art,  including  the  art  of  life  itself. 
Life  as  such  is  neither  good  nor  bad,  and  Audu- 
bon's  undistinguishing  censure  is  surely  as  much 
out  of  place  as  Coryat's  undistinguishing  approval. 
Life  is  raw  material  for  the  artist,  whether  he  be 
the  private  man  carrying  out  his  own  destiny,  or  the 
statesman  shaping  that  of  a  nation.  The  end  of 
the  artist  in  either  case  is  the  good  life;  and  on  his 
own  conception  of  that  will  depend  the  value  of 
his  work. 

"I  recall  to  your  minds  these  obvious  facts,  at 
the  risk  of  being  tedious,  because  to-night,  seeing 
the  turn  that  our  discussion  has  taken,  we  must  re- 
gard ourselves  as  statesmen,  or  as  would-be  states- 
men. And  I,  in  that  capacity,  finding  myself  in 
disagreement  with  everybody,  except  perhaps  Can- 
tilupe,  and  asking  myself  the  reason  why,  can  only 
conclude  that  I  have  a  different  notion  of  the  end 
to  be  pursued,  and  of  the  means  whereby  it  can  be 
attained.  All  of  you,  I  think,  except  Cantilupe, 
have  assumed  that  the  good  life,  whatever  it  may 
be,  can  be  attained  by  everybody ;  and  that  society 
should  be  arranged  so  as  to  secure  that  result.  That 
is,  in  fact,  the  democratic  postulate,  which  is  now 
[132] 


A  MODERN  SYMPOSIUM 

so  generally  accepted  not  only  in  this  company  but 
in  the  world  at  large.  But  it  is  that  postulate  that  I 
dispute.  I  hold  that  the  good  life  must  either  be  the 
privilege  of  a  few,  or  not  exist  at  all.  The  good  life 
in  my  view,  is  the  life  of  a  gentleman.  That  word,  I 
know,  has  been  degraded;  and  there  is  no  more 
ominous  sign  of  the  degradation  of  the  English 
people.  But  I  use  it  in  its  true  and  noble  sense.  I 
mean  by  a  gentleman  a  man  of  responsibility;  one 
who  because  he  enjoys  privileges  recognizes  duties; 
a  landed  proprietor  who  is  also,  and  therefore,  a 
soldier  and  a  statesman ;  a  man  with  a  natural  capac- 
ity and  a  hereditary  tradition  to  rule;  a  member,  in 
a  word,  of  a  governing  aristocracy.  Not  that  the 
good  life  consists  in  governing ;  but  only  a  govern- 
ing class  and  those  who  centre  round  them  are 
capable  of  the  good  life.  Nobility  is  a  privilege  of 
the  nobleman,  and  nobility  is  essential  to  goodness. 
We  are  told  indeed,  that  Good  is  to  be  found  in 
virtue,  in  knowledge,  in  art,  in  love.  I  will  not  dis- 
pute it;  but  we  must  add  that  only  a  noble  man  can 
be  virtuous  greatly,  know  wisely,  perceive  and  feel 
finely.  And  virtue  that  is  mean,  knowledge  that  k 
pedantic,  art  that  is  base,  love  that  is  sensual  are 
[133] 


A  MODERN  SYMPOSIUM 

not  Goods  at  all.  A  noble  man  of  necessity  feels 
and  expresses  himself  nobly.  His  speech  is  litera- 
ture, his  gesture  art,  his  action  drama,  his  affec- 
tions music.  About  him  centres  all  that  is  great  in 
literature,  science,  art.  Magnificent  buildings, 
exquisite  pictures,  statues,  poems,  songs,  crowd 
about  his  habitation  and  attend  him  from  the  cra- 
dle to  the  grave.  His  fine  intelligence  draws  to  itself 
those  of  like  disposition.  He  seeks  genius,  but  he 
shuns  pedantry;  for  his  knowledge  is  part  of  his 
life.  All  that  is  great  he  instinctively  apprehends, 
because  it  is  akin  to  himself.  And  only  so  can  any- 
thing be  truly  apprehended.  For  every  man  and 
every  class  can  only  understand  and  practise  the 
virtues  appropriate  to  their  occupations.  A  profes- 
sor will  never  be  a  hero,  however  much  he  reads  the 
classics.  A  shop-walker  will  never  be  a  poet,  how- 
ever much  he  reads  poetry.  If  you  want  virtue,  in 
the  ancient  sense,  the  sense  of  honour,  of  courage, 
of  self-reliance,  of  the  instinct  to  command,  you 
must  have  a  class  of  gentlemen.  Otherwise  virtue 
will  be  at  best  a  mere  conception  in  the  head,  a  fig- 
ment of  the  brain,  not  a  character  and  a  force. 
Why  is  the  teaching  of  the  classics  now  discredited 
[134] 


A  MODERN  SYMPOSIUM 

among  you  ?  Not  because  it  is  not  as  valuable  as 
ever  it  was,  but  because  there  is  no  one  left  to  un- 
derstand its  value.  The  tradesmen  who  govern  you 
feel  instinctively  that  it  is  not  for  them,  and  they 
are  right.  It  is  above  and  beyond  them.  But  it  was 
the  natural  food  of  gentlemen.  And  the  example 
may  serve  to  illustrate  the  general  truth,  that  you 
cannot  revolutionize  classes  and  their  relations 
without  revolutionizing  culture.  It  is  idle  to  sup- 
pose you  can  communicate  to  a  democracy  the 
heritage  of  an  aristocracy.  You  may  give  them 
books,  show  them  pictures,  offer  them  examples. 
In  vain !  The  seed  cannot  grow  in  the  new  soil.  The 
masses  will  never  be  educated  in  the  sense  that  the 
classes  were.  You  may  rejoice  in  the  fact,  or  you 
may  regret  it ;  but  at  least  it  should  be  recognized. 
For  my  own  part  I  regret  it,  and  I  regret  it  because 
I  conceive  that  the  good  life  is  the  life  of  the 
gentleman. 

"  From  this  it  follows  that  my  ideal  of  a  polity  is 
aristocratic.  For  a  class  of  gentlemen  presupposes 
classes  of  workers  to  support  it.  And  these,  from 
the  ideal  point  of  view,  must  be  regarded  as  mere 
means.  I  do  not  say  that  that  is  just;  I  do  not  say  it 
[135] 


A  MODERN  SYMPOSIUM 

is  what  we  should  choose;  but  I  am  sure  it  is  the 
law  of  the  world  in  which  we  live.  Through  the 
whole  realm  of  nature  every  kind  exists  only  to  be 
the  means  of  supporting  life  in  another.  Every- 
where the  higher  preys  upon  the  lower;  every- 
where the  Good  is  parasitic  on  the  Bad.  And  as  in 
nature,  so  in  human  society.  Read  history  with  an 
impartial  mind,  read  it  in  the  white  light,  and  you 
will  see  that  there  has  never  been  a  great  civiliza- 
tion that  was  not  based  upon  iniquity.  Those  who 
have  eyes  to  see  have  always  admitted,  and  always 
will,  that  the  greatest  civilization  of  Europe  was 
that  of  Greece.  And  of  that  civilization  not  merely 
an  accompaniment  but  the  essential  condition  was 
slavery.  Take  away  that  and  you  take  away  Peri- 
cles, Phidias,  Sophocles,  Plato.  Dismiss  Greece,  if 
you  like.  Where  then  will  you  turn  ?  To  the  Middle 
Ages  ?  You  encounter  feudalism  and  serfdom.  To 
the  modern  world  ?  You  run  against  wage-labour. 
Ah,  but,  you  say,  we  look  to  the  future.  We  shall 
abolish  wage-labour,  as  we  have  abolished  slavery. 
We  shall  have  an  equitable  society  in  which  every- 
body will  do  productive  work,  and  nobody  will  live 
at  the  cost  of  others.  I  do  not  know  whether  you 
[136] 


A  MODERN  SYMPOSIUM 

can  do  this;  it  is  possible  you  may;  but  I  ask  you  to 
count  the  cost.  And  first  let  me  call  your  attention 
to  what  you  have  actually  done  during  the  course 
of  the  past  century.  You  have  deposed  your  aris- 
tocracy and  set  up  in  their  place  men  who  work  for 
their  living,  instead  of  for  the  public  good,  mer- 
chants, bankers,  shop-keepers,  railway  directors, 
brewers,  company-promoters.  Whether  you  are 
better  and  more  justly  governed  I  do  not  pause  to 
enquire.  You  appear  to  be  satisfied  that  you  are. 
But  what  I  see,  returning  to  England  only  at  rare 
intervals,  and  what  you  perhaps  cannot  so  easily 
see,  is  that  you  are  ruining  all  your  standards. 
Dignity,  manners,  nobility,  nay,  common  honesty 
itself,  is  rapidly  disappearing  from  among  you. 
Every  time  I  return  I  find  you  more  sordid,  more 
petty,  more  insular,  more  ugly  and  unperceptive. 
For  the  higher  things,  the  real  goods,  were  sup- 
ported and  sustained  among  you  by  your  class  of 
gentlemen,  while  they  deserved  the  name.  But  by 
depriving  them  of  power  you  have  deprived  them 
of  responsibility,  which  is  the  salt  of  privilege;  and 
they  are  rotting  before  your  eyes,  crumbling  away 
and  dropping  into  the  ruck.  Whether  the  general 
[137] 


A  MODERN  SYMPOSIUM 

level  of  your  civilization  is  rising  I  do  not  pro- 
nounce. I  do  not  even  think  the  question  of  im- 
portance; for  any  rise  must  be  almost  impercep- 
tible. The  salient  fact  is  that  the  pinnacles  are 
disappearing;  that  soon  there  will  be  nothing  left 
that  seeks  the  stars.  Your  middle  classes  have  no 
doubt  many  virtues ;  they  are,  I  will  presume,  sen- 
sible, capable,  industrious,  and  respectable.  But 
they  have  no  notion  of  greatness,  nay,  they  have  an 
instinctive  hatred  of  it.  Whatever  else  they  may 
.have  done,  they  have  destroyed  all  nobility.  In  art, 
in  literature,  in  drama,  in  the  building  of  palaces 
or  villas,  nihil  tetigerunt  quod  non  fcedaverunt.  Such 
is  the  result  of  entrusting  power  to  men  who  make 
their  own  living,  instead  of  to  a  class  set  apart  by 
hereditary  privilege  to  govern  and  to  realize  the 
good  life.  But,  you  may  still  urge,  this  is  only  a 
temporary  stage.  We  still  have  a  parasitic  class, 
the  class  of  capitalists.  It  is  only  when  we  have  got 
rid  of  them,  that  the  real  equality  will  begin,  and 
with  it  will  come  all  other  excellence.  Well,  I  think 
it  possible  that  you  might  establish,  I  will  not  say 
absolute  equality,  but  an  equality  far  greater  than 
the  world  has  ever  seen ;  that  you  might  exact  from 
[138] 


A  MODERN  SYMPOSIUM 

everybody  some  kind  of  productive  work,  in  return 
for  the  guarantee  of  a  comfortable  livelihood.  But 
there  is  no  presumption  that  in  that  way  you  will 
produce  the  nobility  of  character  which  I  hold  to  be 
the  only  thing  really  good.  For  such  nobility,  as  all 
history  and  experience  clearly  shows,  if  we  will  in- 
terrogate it  honestly,  is  the  product  of  a  class-con- 
sciousness. Personal  initiative,  personal  force,  a 
freedom  from  sordid  cares,  a  sense  of  hereditary 
obligation  based  on  hereditary  privilege,  the  con- 
sciousness of  being  set  apart  for  high  purposes,  of 
being  one's  own  master  and  the  master  of  others, 
all  that  and  much  more  goes  to  the  building  up  of 
the  gentleman;  and  all  that  is  impossible  in  a  so- 
cialistic state.  In  the  eternal  order  of  this  inexor- 
able world  it  is  prescribed  that  greatness  cannot 
grow  except  in  the  soil  of  iniquity,  and  that  justice 
can  produce  nothing  but  mediocrity.  That  the 
masses  should  choose  justice  at  the  cost  of  great- 
ness is  intelligible,  nay  it  is  inevitable;  and  that 
choice  is  the  inner  meaning  of  democracy.  But 
gentlemen  should  have  had  the  insight  to  see,  and 
the  courage  to  affirm,  that  the  price  was  too  great  to 
pay.  They  did  not;  and  the  penalty  is  that  they 
[139] 


A  MODERN  SYMPOSIUM 

are  ceasing  to  exist.  They  have  sacrificed  them- 
selves to  the  attempt  to  establish  equity.  But  in  that 
attempt  I  can  take  no  interest.  The  society  in  which 
I  believe  is  an  aristocratic  one.  I  hold,  with  Plato 
and  Aristotle,  that  the  masses  ought  to  be  treated  as 
means,  treated  kindly,  treated  justly,  so  far  as  the 
polity  permits,  but  treated  as  subordinate  always 
to  a  higher  end.  But  your  feet  are  set  on  the  other 
track.  You  are  determined  to  abolish  classes;  to 
level  down  in  order  to  level  up;  to  destroy  superi- 
orities in  order  to  raise  the  average.  I  do  not  say 
you  will  not  succeed.  But  if  you  do,  you  will  realize 
comfort  at  the  expense  of  greatness,  and  your  soci- 
ety will  be  one  not  of  men  but  of  ants  and  bees. 
"  For  Democracy — note  it  well — destroys  great- 
ness in  every  kind,  of  intellect,  of  perception,  as 
well  as  of  character.  And  especially  it  destroys  art, 
that  reflection  of  life  without  which  we  cannot  be 
said  to  live.  For  the  artist  is  the  rarest,  the  most 
choice  of  men.  His  senses,  his  perception,  his  intel- 
ligence have  a  natural  and  inborn  fineness  and  dis- 
tinction. He  belongs  to  a  class,  a  very  small,  a  very 
exclusive  one.  And  he  needs  a  class  to  appreciate 
and  support  him.  No  democracy  has  ever  pro- 
[140] 


A  MODERN  SYMPOSIUM 

duced  or  understood  art.  The  case  of  Athens  is 
wrongly  adduced;  for  Athens  was  an  aristocracy 
under  the  influence  of  an  aristocrat  at  the  time  the 
Parthenon  was  built.  At  all  times  Art  has  been  fos- 
tered by  patrons,  never  by  the  people.  How  should 
they  foster  it?  Instinctively  they  hate  it,  as  they 
hate  all  superiorities.  It  was  not  Florence  but  the 
Medici  and  the  Pope  that  employed  Michelan- 
gelo ;  not  Milan  but  Ludovic  the  Moor  that  valued 
Lionardo.  It  was  the  English  nobles  that  patronized 
Reynolds  and  Gainsborough ;  the  darlings  of  our 
middle  class  are  Herkomer  and  Collier.  There 
have  been  poets,  it  is  true,  who  have  been  born  of 
the  people  and  loved  of  them;  and  I  do  not  de- 
spise poetry  of  that  kind.  But  it  is  not  the  great 
thing.  The  great  thing  is  Sophocles  and  Virgil,  a 
fine  culture  wedded  to  a  rich  nature.  And  such  a 
marriage  is  not  accomplished  .in_the_  fields  or  the 
market-place.  The  literature  loved  by  democracy 
is  a  literature  like  themselves ;  not  literature  at  all, 
but  journalism,  gross,  shrieking,  sensational,  base. 
So  with  the  drama,  so  with  architecture,  so  with 
every  art.  Substitute  the  mass  for  the  patron,  and 
you  eliminate  taste.  The  artist  perishes;  the  charla- 
[141] 


A  MODERN  SYMPOSIUM 

tan  survives  and  flourishes.  Only  in  science  have 
you  still  an  aristocracy.  For  the  crowd  sees  that 
there  is  profit  in  science,  and  lets  it  go  its  way. 
Because  of  the  accident  that  it  can  be  applied,  it 
may  be  disinterestedly  pursued.  And  democracy 
hitherto,  though  impatiently,  endures  an  ideal  aim 
in  the  hope  of  degrading  its  achievement  to  its 
own  uses. 

"Such  being  my  view  of  democratic  society  I 
look  naturally  for  elements  that  promise  not  to  fos- 
ter, but  to  counteract  it.  I  look  for  the  germs  of  a 
new  aristocracy.  They  are  hard  to  discover,  and 
perhaps  my  desires  override  my  judgment.  But  I 
fancy  that  it  will  be  the  very  land  that  has  suffered 
most  acutely  from  the  disease  that  will  be  the  first 
to  discover  the  remedy.  I  endorse  Ellis's  view  of 
American  civilization;  but  I  allow  myself  to  hope 
that  the  reaction  is  already  beginning.  I  have  met 
in  Italy  young  Americans  with  a  finer  sense  of 
beauty,  distinction,  and  form,  than  I  have  been 
able  to  find  among  Englishmen,  still  less  among 
Italians.  And  once  there  is  cast  into  that  fresh  and 
unencumbered  soil  the  seed  of  the  ideal  that  made 
Greece  great,  who  can  prophecy  into  what  forms  of 
[142] 


A  MODERN  SYMPOSIUM 

beauty  and  thought  it  may  not  flower?  The  Plu- 
tocracy of  the  West  may  yet  be  transformed  into  an 
Aristocracy;  and  Europe  re-discover  from  America 
the  secret  of  its  past  greatness.  Such,  at  least,  ap- 
pears to  me  to  be  the  best  hope  of  the  world ;  and 
to  the  realization  of  that  hope  I  would  have  all  men 
of  culture  all  the  world  over  write  their  efforts. 
For  the  kingdom  of  this  earth,  like  that  of  heaven, 
is  taken  by  violence.  We  must  work  not  with,  but 
against  tendencies,  if  we  would  realize  anything 
great;  and  the  men  who  are  fit  to  rule  must  have 
the  courage  to  assume  power,  if  ever  there  is  to 
be  once  more  a  civilization.  Therefore  it  is  that  I, 
the  last  of  an  old  aristocracy,  look  across  the  Atlan- 
tic for  the  first  of  the  new.  And  beyond  socialism, 
beyond  anarchy,  across  that  weltering  sea,  I  strain 
my  eyes  to  see,  pearl-grey  against  the  dawn,  the 
new  and  stately  citadel  of  Power.  For  Power  is 
the  centre  of  crystallization  for  all  good;  given 
that,  you  have  morals,  art,  religion ;  without  it,  you 
have  nothing  but  appetites  and  passions.  Power 
then  is  the  condition  of  life,  even  of  the  life  of  the 
mass,  in  any  sense  in  which  it  is  worth  having. 
And  in  the  interest  of  Democracy  itself  every 
[143] 


A  MODERN  SYMPOSIUM 

good  Democrat  ought  to  pray  for  the  advent  of 
Aristocracy." 

AjlL  of  our  company  had  now  spoken  except 
two.  One  was  the  author,  Vivian,  and  him 
I  had  decided  to  leave  till  the  last.  The 
other  was  John  Woodman,  a  member  of  the  Soci- 
ety of  Friends,  and  one  who  was  commonly  re- 
garded as  a  crank,  because  he  lived  on  a  farm  in  the 
country,  worked  with  his  hands,  and  refused  to 
pay  taxes  on  the  ground  that  they  went  to  main- 
tain the  army  and  navy.  If  Harington  was  hand- 
some, Woodman  was  beautiful,  but  with  beauty 
of  expression  rather  than  of  features.  I  had  always 
thought  ofTum  as  a  perfect  example  of  that  rare 
type,  the  genuine  Christian.  And  since  Harington 
had  just  revealed  himself  as  a  typical  Pagan,  I  felt 
glad  of  the  chance  which  brought  the  two  men  into 
such  close  juxtaposition.  My  only  doubt  was, 
whether  Woodman  would  consent  to  speak.  For, 
on  previous  occasions  I  had  known  him  to  refuse; 
and  he  was  the  only  one  of  us  who  had  always  been 
able  to  sustain  his  refusal,  without  unpleasantness, 
but  without  yielding.  To-night,  however,  he  rose 
in  response  to  my  appeal,  and  spoke  as  follows: 
[144] 


A  MODERN  SYMPOSIUM 

"  All  the  evening  I  have  been  wondering  when  the 
lot  would  fall  on  me,  and  whether,  when  it  did,  I 
should  feel,  as  we  Friends  say, '  free '  to  answer  the 
call.  Now  that  it  has  come,  I  am,  I  think,  free;  but 
not,  if  you  will  pardon  me,  for  a  long  or  eloquent 
speech.  What  I  have  to  say  I  shall  say  as  simply 
and  as  briefly  as  I  can;  and  you,  I  know  will  listen 
with  your  accustomed  tolerance,  though  I  shall 
differ  even  more,  if  possible,  from  all  the  other 
speakers,  than  they  have  differed  from  one  another. 
For  you  have  all  spoken  from  the  point  of  view  of 
the  world.  You  have  put  forward  proposals  for 
changing  society  and  making  it  better.  But  you 
have  relied,  for  the  most  part,  on  external  means 
to  accomplish  such  changes.  You  have  spoken  of 
extending  or  limiting  the  powers  of  government,  of 
socialism,  of  anarchy,  of  education,  of  selective 
breeding.  But  you  have  not  spoken  of  the  Spirit 
and  the  Life,  or  not  in  the  sense  in  which  I  would 
wish  to  speak  of  them.  MacCarthy,  indeed,  I  re- 
member, used  the  words '  the  life  of  the  spirit. '  But 
I  could  not  well  understand  what  he  meant,  except 
that  he  hoped  to  attain  it  by  violence;  and  in  that 
way  what  I  would  seek  and  value  cannot  be  fur- 
[145] 


A  MODERN  SYMPOSIUM 

thered.  Coryat,  again,  and  Harington  spoke  of  the 
good  life.  But  Coryat  seemed  to  think  that  any  and 
all  life  is  good.  The  line  of  division  which  I  see 
everywhere  he  did  not  see  at  all,  the  line  between 
the  children  of  God  and  the  children  of  this  world. 
I  could  not  say  with  him  that  there  is  a  natural 
goodness  in  life  as  such;  only  that  any  honest  occu- 
pation will  be  good  if  it  be  practised  by  a  good 
man.  It  is  not  wealth  that  is  needed,  nor  talents,  nor 
intellect.  These  things  are  gifts  that  may  be  given 
or  withheld.  But  the  one  thing  needful  is  the  spirit 
of  God,  which  is  given  freely  to  the  poor  and  the 
ignorant  who  seek  it.  Believing  this,  I  cannot  but 
disagree,  also,  with  Harington.  For  the  life  of 
which  he  spoke  is  the  life  of  this  world.  He  praises 
power,  and  wisdom,  and  beauty,  and  the  excellence 
of  the  body  and  the  mind.  In  these  things,  he  says, 
the  good  life  consists.  And  since  they  are  so  rare 
and  difficult  to  attain,  and  need  for  their  fostering, 
natural  aptitudes,  and  leisure  and  wealth  and 
great  position,  he  concludes  that  the  good  life  is 
possible  only  for  the  few;  and  that  to  them  the 
many  should  be  ministers.  And  if  the  goods  he 
speaks  of  be  really  such,  he  is  right;  for  in  the 
[146] 


A  MODERN  SYMPOSIUM 

things  of  the  world,  what  one  takes,  another  must 
resign.  If  there  are  rulers  there  must  be  subjects; 
if  there  are  rich,  there  must  be  poor;  if  there  are 
idle  men  there  must  be  drudges.  But  the  real  Good 
is  not  thus  exclusive.  It  is  open  to  all ;  and  the  more 
a  man  has  of  it  the  more  he  gives  to  others.  That 
Good  is  the  love  of  God,  and  through  the  love  of 
God  the  love  of  man.  These  are  old  phrases,  but 
their  sense  is  not  old ;  rather  it  is  always  new,  for  it 
is  eternal.  Now,  as  of  old,  in  the  midst  of  science,  of 
business,  of  invention,  of  the  multifarious  confusion 
and  din  and  hurry  of  the  world,  God  may  be  direct- 
ly perceived  and  known.  But  to  know  Him  is  to 
love  Him,  and  to  love  Him  is  to  love  his  creatures, 
and  most  all  of  our  fellow-men,  to  whom  we  are 
nearest  and  most  akin,  and  with  and  by  whom  we 
needs  must  live.  And  if  that  love  were  really  spread 
abroad  among  us,  the  questions  that  have  been  dis- 
cussed to-night  would  resolve  themselves.  For 
there  would  be  a  rule  of  life  generally  observed  and 
followed;  and  under  it  the  conditions  that  make  the 
problems  would  disappear.  Of  such  a  rule,  all  men, 
dimly  and  at  moments,  are  aware.  By  it  they  were 
warned  that  slavery  was  wrong.  And  had  they  but 
[147] 


A  MODERN  SYMPOSIUM 

read  it  more  truly,  and  followed  it  more  faithfully, 
they  would  never  have  made  war  to  abolish  what 
they  would  never  have  wished  to  maintain.  And 
the  same  rule  it  is  that  is  warning  us  now  that  it  is 
wrong  to  fight,  wrong  to  heap  up  riches,  wrong  to 
live  by  the  labour  of  others.  As  we  come  to  heed 
the  warning  we  shall  cease  to  do  these  things.  But 
to  change  institutions  without  changing  hearts  is 
idle.  For  it  is  but  to  change  the  subjects  into  the 
rulers,  the  poor  into  the  rich,  the  drudges  into  the 
idle  men.  And,  as  a  result,  we  should  only  have  idle 
men  more  frivolous,  rich  men  more  hard,  rulers 
more  incompetent.  It  is  not  by  violence  or  com- 
pulsion, open  or  disguised,  that  the  kingdom  of 
heaven  comes.  It  is  by  simple  service  on  the  part  of 
those  that  know  the  law,  by  their  following  the 
right  in  their  own  lives,  and  preaching  rather  by 
their  conduct  than  by  their  words. 

«»^^^  """*———— •»••.•.  ' —     —    _  — 

"  This  would  be  a  hard  saying  if  we  had  to  rely 
on  ourselves.  But  we  have  God  to  rely  on,  who 
gives  his  help  not  according  to  the  measure  of  our 
powers.  A  man  cannot  by  taking  thought  add  a 
cubit  to  his  stature;  he  cannot  increase  the  scope  of 
his  mind  or  the  range  of  his  senses;  he  cannot,  by 
[148] 


A  MODERN  SYMPOSIUM 

willing,  make  himself  a  philosopher,  or  a  leader  of 
men.  But  drawing  on  the  source  that  is  open  to  the 
poorest  and  the  weakest  he  can  become  a  good 
man;  and  then,  whatever  his  powers,  he  will  be 
using  them  for  God  and  man.  If  men  do  that,  each 
man  for  himself,  by  the  help  of  God,  all  else  will 
follow.  So  true  is  it  that  if  ye  seek  first  the  king- 
dom of  heaven  all  these  things  shall  be  added  unto 
you.  Yes,  that  is  true.  It  is  eternal  truth.  It  does  not 
change  with  the  doctrines  of  Churches  nor  depend 
upon  them.  I  would  say  even  it  does  not  depend  on 
Christianity.  For  the  words  would  be  true,  though 
there  had  never  been  a  Christ  to  speak  them. 
And  the  proof  that  they  are  true  is  simply  the  di- 
rect witness  of  consciousness.  We  perceive  such 
truths  as  we  perceive  the  sun.  They  carry  with 
them  their  own  certainty;  and  on  that  rests  the 
certainty  of  God.  Therein  is  the  essence  of  all  re- 
ligion. I  say  it  because  I  know.  And  the  rest  of  you, 
so  it  seems  to  me,  are  guessing.  Nor  is  it,  as  it  might 
seem  at  first,  a  truth  irrelevant  to  your  discussion. 
For  it  teaches  that  all  change  must  proceed  from 
within  outward.  There  is  not,  there  never  has 
been,  a  just  polity,  for  there  has  never  been  one 
[149] 


A  MODERN  SYMPOSIUM 

based  on  the  love  of  God  and  man.  All  that  you 
condemn  —  poverty,  and  wealth,  idleness  and  ex- 
cessive labour,  squalor,  disease,  barren  marriages, 
aggression  and  war,  will  continue  in  spite  of  all 
changes  in  form,  until  men  will  to  get  rid  of  them. 
And  that  they  will  not  do  till  they  have  learnt  to 
love  God  and  man.  Revolution  will  be  vain,  evo- 
lution will  be  vain,  all  uneasy  turnings  from  side  to 
side  will  be  vain,  until  that  change  of  heart  be  ac- 
complished. And  accomplished  it  will  be  in  its  own 
time.  Everywhere  I  see  it  at  work,  in  many  ways, 
in  the  guise  of  many  different  opinions.  I  see  it  at 
work  here  to-night  among  those  with  whom  I  most 
disagree.  I  see  it  in  the  hope  of  Allison  and  Wilson, 
in  the  defiance  of  MacCarthy,  in  the  doubt  of 
Martin,  and  most  of  all  in  the  despair  of  Audubon. 
For  he  is  right  to  despair  of  the  only  life  he  knows, 
the  life  of  the  world  whose  fruits  are  dust  and 
ashes.  He  drifts  on  a  midnight  ocean,  unlighted  by 
stars,  and  tossed  by  the  winds  of  disappointment, 
sorrow,  sickness,  irreparable  loss.  Ah,  but  above 
him,  if  he  but  knew,  as  now  in  our  eyes  and  ears, 
rises  into  a  crystal  sky  the  first  lark  of  dawn.  And 
the  cuckoo  sings,  and  the  blackbird,  do  you  not 
[150] 


A  MODERN  SYMPOSIUM 

hear  them  ?  And  the  fountain  rises  ever  from  its 
fall  in  showers  of  silver  sparks,  up  to  the  heaven  it 
will  not  reach  till  fire  has  made  it  vapour.  And  so 
the  whole  creation  aspires,  out  of  the  night  of 
despair,  into  the  cool  freshness  of  dawn  and  on  to 
the  sun  of  noon.  Let  us  be  patient  and  follow  each 
his  path,  waiting  on  the  word  of  God  till  He  be 
pleased  to  reveal  it.  For  His  way  is  not  hard,  it  is 
joy  and  peace  unutterable.  And  those  who  wait  in 
faith  He  will  bless  with  the  knowledge  of  Him- 
self. " 

As  he  finished  it  was  light,  though  the  sun  had 
not  yet  risen.  The  first  birds  were  singing  in  the 
wood,  and  the  fountain  glistened  and  sang,  and 
the  plain  lay  before  us  like  a  bride  waiting  for  the 
bridegroom.  We  were  silent  under  the  spell;  and  I 
scarcely  know  how  long  had  passed  before  I  had 
heart  to  call  upon  Vivian  to  conclude. 

I  HAVE  heard  Vivian  called  a  philosopher,  but 
the  term  is  misleading.  Those  who  know  his 
writings  —  and   they   are   too  few  —  know 
that  he  concerned  himself,  directly  or  indirectly, 
with  philosophic  problems.  But  he  never  wrote 
philosophy;  his  methods  were  not  those  of  logic; 
[151] 


A  MODERN  SYMPOSIUM 

and  his  sympathies  were  with  science  and  the  arts. 
In  the  early  age  of  Greece  he  might  have  been 
Empedocles  or  Heraclitus;  he  could  never  have 
been  Spinoza  or  Kant.  He  sought  to  interpret  life, 
but  not  merely  in  terms  of  the  intellect.  He  needed 
Jtojsee  and  feel  in  order  to  think.  And  he  expressed 
himself  m  a  style  too  intellectual  for  lovers  of 
poetry,  too  metaphorical  for  lovers  of  philosophy. 
His  Public,  therefore,  though  devoted,  was  limit- 
ed; but  we,  in  our  society,  always  listened  to  him 
with  an  interest  that  was  rather  enhanced  than  di- 
minished by  an  element  of  perplexity.  I  have  found 
itdiard  to  reproduce  his  manner,  in  which  it  was 
clear  that  he  took  a  conscious  and  artistic  pleas- 
ure. S*till  less  can  I  give  the  impression  of  his  lean 
and  firi^-cut  face,  and  the  distinction  of  his  whole 
personah'v.  He  stood  up  straight  and  tall  against 
the  whitening  sky,  and  delivered  himself  as  follows : 
"  Man  is  in  the  making;  but  henceforth  he  must 
make  himself.  To  that  point  Natui'e  has  led  him, 
out  of  the  primeval  slime.  She  has  given  him 
limbs,  she  has  given  him  brain,  she  has  given  him 
the  rudiment  of  a  soul.  Now  it  is  for  him  to  make 
or  mar  that  splendid  torso.  Let  him  look  no  more 
[152] 


A  MODERN  SYMPOSIUM 

to  her  for  aid;  for  it  is  her  will  to  create  one  who 
has  the  power  to  create  himself.  If  he  fail,  she  fails; 
back  goes  the  metal  to  the  pot;  and  the  great  pro- 
cess begins  anew.  If  he  succeeds,  he  succeeds  alone. 
His  fate  is  in  his  own  hands. 

"  Of  that  fate,  did  he  but  know  it,  brain  is  the 
lord,  to  fashion  a  palace  fit  for  the  soul  to  inhabit. 
Yet  still,  after  centuries  of  stumbling,  reason  is  no 
more  than  the  furtive  accomplice  of  habit  and 
force.  Force  creates,  habit  perpetuates,  reason  the 
sycophant  sanctions.  And  so  he  drifts,  not  up  but 
down,  and  Nature  watches  in  anguish,  self-for- 
bidden to  intervene,  unless  it  be  to  annihilate.  Tf  he 
is  to  drive,  and  drive  straight,  reason  must  seize 
the  reins;  and  the  art  of  her  driving  is  the  art  of 
Politics.  Of  that  art,  the  aim  is  perfection,  the 
method  selection.  Science  is  its  minister,  ethics  its 
lord.  It  spares  no  prejudice,  respects  no  habit, 
honours  no  tradition.  Institutions  are  stubble  in 
the  fire  it  k.ndles.  The  present  and  the  past  it 
throws  without  remorse  into  the  jaws  of  the  future. 
It  is  the  angel  with  the  flaming  sword  swift  to  dis- 
possess the  crone  that  sits  on  her  money-bags  at 
Westminster. 

[153] 


A  MODERN  SYMPOSIUM 

"  Or,  shall  I  say,  it  is  Hercules  with  the  Augean 
stable  to  cleanse,  of  which  every  city  is  a  stall, 
heaped  with  the  dung  of  a  century.  With  the  Hydra 
to  slay,  whose  hundred  writhing  heads  of  false  be- 
lief, from  old  truth  rotted  into  lies,  spring  inex- 
haustible fecund  in  creeds,  interests,  institutions. 
Of  which  the  chief  is  Property,  most  cruel  and 
blind  of  all,  who  devours  us,  ere  we  know  it, 
in  the  guise  of  Security  and  Peace,  killing  the 
bodies  of  some,  the  souls  of  most,  and  growing 
ever  fresh  from  the  root,  in  forms  that  but  seem  to 
be  new,  until  the  root  itself  be  cut  away  by  the 
sword  of  the  spirit.  What  that  sword  shall  be  called, 
socialism,  anarchy,  what  you  will,  is  small  matter, 
so  but  the  hand  that  wields  it  be  strong,  the  brain 
clear,  the  soul  illumined,  passionate  and  profound. 
But  where  shall  the  champion  be  found  fit  to  wield 
that  weapon  ? 

"He  will  not  be  found;  he  must  be  made.  By 
Man  Man  must  be  sown.  Once  he  might  trust  to 
Nature,  while  he  was  laid  at  her  breast.  But  she 
has  weaned  him;  and  the  promptings  she  no 
longer  guides,  he  may  not  blindly  trust  for  their 
issue.  While  she  weeded,  it  was  hers  to  plant;  but 
[154] 


A  MODERN  SYMPOSIUM 

she  weeds  no  more.  He  of  his  own  will  uproots  or 
spares;  and  of  his  own  will  he  must  sow,  if  he 
would  not  have  his  garden  a  wilderness.  Even  now, 
precious  plants  perish  before  his  eyes,  even  now 
weeds  grow  rank,  while  he  watches  in  idle  awe, 
and  prates  of  his  own  impotence.  He  has  given  the 
reins  to  Desire,  and  she  drives  him  back  to  the 
abyss.  But  harness  her  to  the  car,  with  reason  for 
charioteer,  and  she  will  grow  wings  to  waft  him  to 
his  goal.  That  in  him  that  he  calls  Love  is  but  the 
dragon  of  the  slime.  Let  him  bury  it  in  the  grave  of 
Self,  and  it  will  rise  a  Psyche,  with  wings  too  wide 
to  shelter  only  the  home.  The  Man  that  is  to  be 
comes  at  the  call  of  the  Man  that  is.  Let  him  call 
then,  soberly,  not  from  the  fumes  of  lust.  For  as  is 
the  call,  so  will  be  the  answer. 

"  But  for  what  should  he  call  ?  For  Pagan  ?  For 

O 

Christian?  For  neither,  and  for  both.  Paganism 
speaks  for  the  men  in  Man,  Christianity  for  the 
IVjjmln  men.' The  fruifthat  was  eaten  in  Paradise, 
sown  in  the  soul  of  man,  bore  in  Hellas  its  first  and 
fairest  harvest.  There  rose  upon  the  world  of  mind 
the  triple  sun  of  the  Ideal.  Aphrodite,  born  of  the 
foam,  flowered  on  the  azure  main,  Tritons  in  her 
[155] 


A  MODERN  SYMPOSIUM 

train  and  Nereids,  under  the  flush  of  dawn.  Apollo, 
radiant  in  hoary  dew,  leapt  from  the  eastern  wave, 
flamed  through  the  heaven,  and  cooled  his  hissing 
wheels  in  the  vaporous  west.  Athene,  sprung  from 
the  brain  of  God,  armed  with  the  spear  of  truth, 
moved  grey-eyed  over  the  earth  probing  the  minds 
of  men.  Love,  Beauty,  Wisdom,  behold  the  Pagan 
Trinity!  Through  whose  grace  only  men  are  men, 
and  fit  to  become  Man.  Therefore,  the  gods  are 
eternal ;  not  they  die,  but  we,  when  we  think  them 
dead.  And  no  man  who  does  not  know  them,  and 
knowing,  worship  and  love,  is  able  to  be  a  member 
of  the  body  of  Man.  Thus  it  is  that  the  sign  of  a 
step  forward  is  a  look  backward;  and  Greece 
stands  eternally  at  the  threshold  of  the  new  life. 
Forget  her,  and  you  sink  back,  if  not  to  the  brute, 
to  the  insect.  Consider  thejint,  and  beware  of  her ! 
She  is  there  for  a  warning.  In  universal  Anthood 
there  are  no  ants.  From  that  fate  may  men  save 
Man! 

"  But  the  Pagan  gods  were  pitiless ;  they  preyed 

upon  the  weak.  Their  wisdom  was  rooted  in  folly, 

their  beauty  in  squalor,  their  love  in  oppression. 

So  fostered,  those  flowers  decayed.  And  out  of  the 

[156] 


A  MODERN  SYMPOSIUM 

rotting  soil  rose  the  strange  new  blossoms  we  call 
Faith,  and  Hope,  and  Charity.  For  Folly  cried  '  I 
know  not,  but  I  believe;'  Squalor, '  I  am  vile,  but  I 
hope;'  and  the  oppressed,  'I  am  despised,  but  I 
love. '  That  was  the  Christian  Trinity,  the  echo  of 
man's  frustration,  as  the  other  was  the  echo  of  his 
accomplishment.  Yet  both  he  needs.  For  because 
he  grows,  he  is  dogged  by  imperfection.  His  weak- 
ness is  mocked  by  those  shining  forms  on  the 
mountain-top.  But  Faith,  and  Hope,  and  Charity 
walk  beside  him  in  the  mire,  to  kindle,  to  comfort 
and  to  help.  And  of  them  justice  is  born,  the  plea  of 
the  Many  against  the  Few,  of  the  nation  against  the 
class,  of  mankind  against  the  nation,  of  the  future 
against  the  present.  In  Christianity  men  were  born 
into  Man.  Yet  in  Him  let  not  men  die!  For  what 
profits  justice  unless  it  be  the  step  to  the  throne  of 
Olympus  ?  What  profit  Faith  and  Hope  without  a 
goal  ?  Charity  without  an  object  ?  Vain  is  the  love 
of  emmets,  or  of  bees  and  coral-insects.  For  the 
worth  of  love  is  as  the  worth  of  the  lover.  It  is  only 
in  the  soil  of  Paganism  that  Christianity  can  come  to 
maturity.  And  Faith,  Hope,  Charity,  are  but  seeds 
of  themselves  till  they  fall  into  the  womb  of  Wis- 
[157] 


A  MODERN  SYMPOSIUM 

dom,  Beauty,  and  Love.  Olympus  lies  before  us, 
the  snow-capped  mountain.  Let  us  climb  it,  to- 
gether, if  you  will,  not  some  on  the  corpses  of  the 
rest;  but  climb  at  least,  not  fester  and  swarm  on 
rich  meadows  of  equality.  We  are  not  for  the  val- 
ley, nor  for  the  forests  or  the  pastures.  If  we  be 
brothers,  yet  we  are  brothers  in  a  quest,  needing 
our  foremost  to  lead.  Aphrodite,  Apollo,  Athene, 
are  before  us,  not  behind.  Majestic  forms,  they 
gleam  among  the  snows.  March,  then,  men  in 
Man! 

"  But  is  it  men  who  attain  ?  Or  Man  ?  Or  not 
even  He,  but  God?  We  do  not  know.  We  know 
only  the  impulse  and  the  call.  The  gleam  on  the 
snow,  the  upward  path,  the  urgent  stress  within, 
that  is  our  certainty,  the  rest  is  doubt.  But  doubt  is 
a  horizon,  and  on  it  hangs  the  star  of  hope.  By  that 
\ve  live;  and  the  science  blinds,  the  renunciation 
maims,  that  would  shut  us  off  from  those  silver 
rays.  Our  eyes  must  open,  as  we  march,  to  every 
signal  from  the  height.  And  since  the  soul  has 
indeed  *  immortal  longings  in  her'  we  may  believe 
them  prophetic  of  their  fruition.  For  her  claims  are 
august  as  those  of  man,  and  appeal  to  the  same 
[158] 


A  MODERN  SYMPOSIUM 

witness.  The  witness  of  either  is  a  dream ;  but  such 
dreams  come  from  the  gate  of  horn.  They  are 
principles  of  life,  and  about  them  crystallizes  the 
universe.  For  will  is  more  than  knowledge,  since 
will  creates  what  knowledge  records.  Science  hangs 
in  a  void  of  nescience,  a  planet  turning  in  the  dark. 
But  across  that  void  Faith  builds  the  road  that 
leads  to  Olympus  and  the  eternal  Gods. " 

By  the  time  he  had  finished  speaking  the  sun 
had  risen,  and  the  glamour  of  dawn  was  passing 
into  the  light  of  common  day.  The  birds  sang 
loud,  the  fountain  sparkled,  and  the  trees  rustled 
softly  in  the  early  breeze.  Our  party  broke  up 
quietly.  Some  went  away  to  bed;  others  strolled 
down  the  gardens;  and  Audubon  went  off  by  ap- 
pointment to  bathe  with  my  young  nephew,  as  gay 
and  happy,  it  would  seem,  as  man  could  be.  I  was 
left  to  pace  the  terrace  alone,  watching  the  day 
grow  brighter,  and  wondering  at  the  divers  fates 
of  men.  An  early  bell  rang  in  the  little  church  at 
the  park-gate;  a  motor-car  hooted  along  the  high- 
way. And  I  thought  of  Cantilupe  and  Harington, 
of  Allison  and  Wilson,  and  beyond  them  of  the 
vision  of  the  dawn  and  the  daybreak,  of  Wood- 
[159] 


A  MODERN  SYMPOSIUM 

man,  the  soul,  and  Vivian,  the  spirit.  I  paused  foi 
a  last  look  down  the  line  of  bright  statues  that 
bordered  the  long  walk  below  me.  I  fancied  them 
stretching  away  to  the  foot  of  Olympus ;  and  with- 
out elation  or  excitement,  but  with  the  calm  of  ar 
assured  hope,  I  prepared  to  begin  the  new  day. 

THE   END 


Tin:  COUNTRY  LIFE   PRESS,  GARDEN   CITY,  N.  Y. 


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